STORY  OF 


EGE 


ING 


A  HISTORY  OF  WILLIAMS  COLLEGE 


MARK  HOPKINS 

PRESIDENT   OF   WILLIAMS    COLLEGE 
1836-1872 


A  HISTORY  OF 
WILLIAMS  COLLEGE 


BY 


LEVERETT  WILSON  SPRING 

EMERITUS    PROFESSOR    OF   THE    ENGLISH    LANGUAGE 
AND    LITERATURE 


WITH   ILLUSTRATIONS 


BOSTON    AND    NEW  YORK 

HOUGHTON   MIFFLIN  COMPANY 

<*fc  tttoetfibe  $re&*  CambriDge 

1917 


$ 


COPYRIGHT,  1917,  BY  LEVERRTT  WILSON  SPRING 
ALL  RIGHTS   RESERVED 

Published  June  igrj 


CONTENTS 

I.  THE  FOUNDER i 

II.  WEST  TOWNSHIP  AND  THE  FREE  SCHOOL      .     .     .     .17 

III.  THE  BEGINNINGS  OF  THE  COLLEGE 42 

IV.  WlLLIAMSTOWN  OR  ELSEWHERE? 94 

V.  A  SECOND  AND  GREATER  CRISIS 124 

VI.  HIGH  TIDES  IN  THE  CALENDAR  OF  THE  OLDER  WILLIAMS  .  154 

VII.  A  PERIOD  OF  TRANSITION 227 

VIII.  THE  NEW  WILLIAMS 243 

IX.  LOOKING  BEFORE  AND  AFTER 277 

APPENDIX 

I.  Inventory  of  Ye  Late  Ephm  Williams  Chest        .      .      .323 
II.  Ephraim  Williams  Library 324 

III.  New  York  and  Vermont  Stages 325 

IV.  Extract  from  an  Old  Letter 325 

V.  Williams  College:  an  announcement 326 

VI.  Penalties  or  "Mulcts"  according  to  the  By-Laws  of  1795  327 

VII.  Letter  to  President  John  Adams,  and  President  Adams' 

Reply 329 

VIII.  Williams  Volunteers,  Graduate  and  Non-Graduate,  in 

the  Civil  War,  and  their  Rank 332 

IX.  Bill  Pratt         333 

INDEX   .      .      .      ., .335 


369906 


ILLUSTRATIONS 

MARK  HOPKINS Frontispiece 

WEST  COLLEGE,  FROM  A  DAGUERREOTYPE  TAKEN  FOR  THE  CLASS 
OF  1848 38 

WEST  COLLEGE  AS  IT  is  IN  1917 38 

ZEPHANIAH  SWIFT  MOORE 98 

EDWARD  DORR  GRIFFIN 124 

GRIFFIN  HALL 132 

SKETCH  OF  THE  CAMPUS  MADE  BETWEEN  1828  AND  1837    •      •  H6 
MARK  HOPKINS 154 

From  a  daguerreotype  taken  probably  in  1844 

HOPKINS  OBSERVATORY 164 

PAUL  ANSEL  CHADBOURNE 228 

FRANKLIN  CARTER 244 

THOMPSON  MEMORIAL  CHAPEL 248 

JOHN  HASKELL  HEWITT 254 

HENRY  HOPKINS 256 

HARRY  AUGUSTUS  GARFIELD 260 

GRACE  HALL  AND  WILLIAMS  HALL 306 

GREYLOCK  AND  THE  HOPPER 312 

FACSIMILE  OF  "THE  MOUNTAINS" 318 


A  HISTORY  OF 
WILLIAMS  COLLEGE 


CHAPTER  I 

THE  FOUNDER 

FOR  the  first  two  thirds  of  the  forty  years  and  six 
months  which  comprise  the  lifetime  of  Colonel 
Ephraim  Williams,  founder  of  the  college,  biographic 
materials  are  few  and  meagre.  The  vital  records  of 
his  native  town,  the  will  of  his  grandfather,  and  an 
unsigned  "Sketch"  in  the  eighth  volume  of  the  " Col- 
lections" of  the  Massachusetts  Historical  Society 
seem  to  be  the  only  available  sources  of  information. 
It  appears  that  April  I,  1713,  Ephraim  Williams, 
Senior,  of  Newton,  married  Elizabeth,  daughter  of 
Abraham  Jackson,  a  substantial  and  reputable  towns- 
man, and  that  their  eldest  son,  Ephraim,  Junior,  was 
born  March  7,  1715,  or,  by  old  style,  February  24, 
1714.  On  the  I2th  of  April,  1718,  and  a  few  days 
after  the  birth  of  a  second  son,  Thomas,  Elizabeth 
Williams  died,  and  her  two  children  were  practically 
adopted  by  their  grandfather.  From  the  date  of  his 
mother's  death  until  January  3,  1738-39,  when  Abra- 
ham Jackson,  "Being  under  the  Decays  and  Infirmi- 
ties of  Age,  But  of  perfect  Mind  and  Memory,  thanks 
be  given  to  God,"  executed  his  last  will  and  testa- 
ment, —  an  interval  of  twenty-one  years,  —  no  ref- 

i 


WILLIAMS  COLLEGE 

erence  to  the  founder  has  been  discovered  in  any 
contemporary  document  or  publication.  Of  this  last 
will  and  testament  he  was  naturally  one  of  the  bene- 
ficiaries: "I  give  and  Bequeath  to  my  Grandson 
Ephraim  Williams  .  .  .  the  sum  of  Fifty  Pounds  in 
Money  to  be  paid  .  .  .  within  Five  years  Next  after 
my  Decease."  Whatever  the  reason  for  discrimina- 
tion may  have  been,  and  it  is  not  now  obvious,  the 
younger  brother  received  a  much  larger  share  of  the 
estate  than  the  elder.  "  I  have  expended  a  consider- 
able Sum,"  the  testator  observes,  "for  bringing  up 
and  educating  my  Grandson,  Thomas  Williams  .  .  . 
and  have  put  into  the  hands  of  his  Father  .  .  .  one 
hundred  and  Forty  Pounds  in  Money  to  be  Im- 
proved and  laid  out  to  the  Best  advantage  of  my 
said  Grandson."  l 

The  "Sketch,"  printed  nearly  half  a  century  after 
the  death  of  the  founder,  devotes  only  two  sentences 
to  the  long  pre-Berkshire  period  of  his  career:  "For 
several  years  in  early  life  [he]  followed  the  seas;  but 
by  persuasion  of  his  father  relinquished  that  business. 
In  his  several  voyages  to  Europe  he  visited  England, 
Spain  and  Holland;  acquired  graceful  manners  and 
a  considerable  stock  of  useful  knowledge." 

Ebenezer  Fitch,  first  president  of  Williams  Col- 
lege and  heretofore  supposed  to  have  been  sole  author 
of  the  "Sketch,"  had  an  important  collaborator.  "I 
have  received  a  letter,"  the  former  wrote  the  Secretary 

1  Witt  of  Abraham  Jackson,  Registry  of  Probate,  East  Cambridge. 
Thomas  Williams,  a  prominent  physician  and  surgeon,  settled  at 
Deerfield  in  1739  and  died  there  in  1775.  He  entered  Yale  in  the  class 
of  1738,  but  did  not  graduate.  In  1741  Yale  gave  him  the  honorary 
degree  of  A.M. 

2 


THE  FOUNDER 

of  the  Historical  Society,  January  26,  1801,  "from 
the  Rev.  Dr.  Miller  of  New  York,  requesting  informa- 
tion about  the  rise  and  progress  of  this  institution,  its 
friends,  Library,  Apparatus,  courses  of  instruction, 
expenses  of  education,  &c.  In  answering  this  letter 
I  have  nearly  drawn  up  the  historical  account  you 
desire.  I  wish  to  insert  some  further  Memoirs  of  our 
Founder.  .  .  .  These  I  have  requested  Dr.  [Stephen] 
West  of  Stockbridge  to  furnish.  He  married  Col. 
Williams'  [hal^-sister.1 1  expect  his  response  this  week. 
I  will  improve  the  first  opportunity  after  I  get  it  to 
complete  the  account  and  send  it  to  you."  2  The 
"further  Memoirs,"  therefore,  of  the  "historical  ac- 
count" embody  the  recollections  and  impressions  of 
surviving  members  of  the  Williams  family. 

It  is  not  until  November  3,  1742,  that  the  biog- 
raphy of  the  founder  becomes  definitely  legible.  On 
that  day  a  Berkshire  Justice  of  the  Peace  made  the 
following  entry  in  his  records:  "  Personally  appeared 
Ephm  Williams,  Jun.  the  Surveyor  .  .  .  Joseph  Allen, 
one  of  the  Chainmen,  and  made  Solemn  oath  that 
in  their  Several  Capacities  .  .  .  they  acted  Honestly 
and  faithfully  according  to  their  best  Skill  and  Judg- 
ment. The  other  Chainman  (Viz)  Joseph  Wattkins, 
being  removed  to  a  Considerable  Distance  Could  not 
be  Sworn."  3  The  exact  date  of  the  arrival  of  "  Ephm 

1  Dr.  West,  a  graduate  of  Yale,  chaplain  at  Fort  Massachusetts  for 
a  year  or  more,  vice-president  of  Williams  College  from  1793  to  1812, 
was  a  prominent  clergyman  in  the  Berkshires  for  sixty  years.  He  mar- 
ried Elizabeth  Williams,  who  died  in  1804  at  the  age  of  seventy-four 
years.  Elijah  Williams,  half-brother  of  the  founder,  was  also  a  resident 
of  Stockbridge  at  this  time. 

*  Fitch,  MS.  letter,  Mass.  His.  Society,  41  F.  207. 

3  Mass.  Archives,  Maps  and  Plans,  xxxin,  24. 

3 


WILLIAMS  COLLEGE 

Williams,  Jun.,"  at  Stockbridge  —  an  Indian  Mission 
where  his  father  settled  in  1737  —  is  uncertain,  but 
when  he  appeared  before  the  justice  he  had  been  in 
that  town  long  enough  to  become  known  as  "the 
Surveyor/' 

After  the  lapse  of  eighteen  months  when  no  trace 
of  him  survives,  he  reappeared  and  as  representative 
of  Stockbridge  at  the  General  Court  for  the  session 
beginning  May  30,  1744,  and  concluding  the  25th  of 
the  next  April.1  He  served  on  two  important  com- 
mittees, and  "his  politeness  and  address,"  it  is  said, 
"procured  for  him  greater  influence  than  any  other 
person  at  that  day  possessed."  2  Then,  in  the  summer 
of  1745,  he  received  a  captain's  commission  and  was 
assigned  to  the  command  of  Fort  Shirley  —  one  of 
the  small  military  stations  established  along  the 
western  frontier  of  Massachusetts.  From  thence  he 
presently  transferred  his  headquarters  to  Fort  Mas- 
sachusetts, a  later  and  more  important  post  between 
East  Hoosac  and  West  Township,  —  renamed  North 
Adams  and  Williamstown,  —  and  continued  in  ac- 
tive service  until  1748  when  the  treaty  of  Aix  la 
Chapelle  brought  King  George's  War  to  an  end. 

During  this  desultory  border  struggle  only  one 
local  event  has  much  present  interest  or  importance 
—  the  capture  and  destruction  of  Fort  Massachu- 
setts by  a  few  hundred  French  and  Indians  under  the 
command  of  Rigaud  Vaudreuil,  Town  Major  of  Three 
Rivers,  Canada.  The  disaster  occurred  in  August, 
1746,  and  when  Captain  Williams  was  absent  in  Al- 

1  Journal,  Mass.  H.R.,  July  I,  1744. 

*  Mass.  His.  Society,  Collections,  viu,  48. 

4 


THE  FOUNDER 

bany  whither  he  had  gone  to  take  part  in  a  projected 
attack  upon  Montreal.1  Two  years  later  —  the  fort 
having  been  rebuilt  meantime  —  another  skulking 
band  of  hostiles  made  an  unsuccessful  attempt  to  re- 
peat the  exploit. 

A  few  weeks  before  the  second  raid  upon  Fort 
Massachusetts  Colonel  John  Stoddard,  of  North- 
ampton, died.  He  was  the  man  whom  Ephraim  Wil- 
liams characterized  in  his  will  as  "my  great  benefac- 
tor." This  event  a  ministerial  friend  —  the  Rev.  Tim- 
othy Woodbridge,  of  Hatfield  —  made  the  occasion 
of  a  letter  in  which  he  set  forth  with  unmistakable 
earnestness  and  perhaps  with  a  shade  of  solicitude  his 
conception  of  that  happy  warrior,  — 

''Whom  every  man  in  arms  should  wish  to  be." 

"I  cannot  forget  you  at  Fort  Massachusetts, "  so 
this  letter,  written  July  21,  1748,  begins,  "but  fre- 
quently paint  you  in  my  mind,  sometimes  laughing 
and  in  a  merry  mood,  sometimes  thinking.  ...  It  is 
in  the  latter  circumstances  that  I  view  you  whilst 
writing,  and  here  suffer  me  to  say  that  to  do  what 
good  we  can  in  the  Station  which  providence  has  as- 
signed us  is  our  indispensable  Duty  and  [I]  hope 
Constantly  governs  you.  The  opportunity  that  either 
you  or  I  shall  have  to  do  any  good  in  this  world  is  but 
short  and  .  .  .  the  Supreme  Judge  will  one  day  demand 
an  account  of  our  Conduct.  Let  us  do  nothing  now 
that  we  will  then  be  ashamed  of.  ...  You  will  allow 
me  to  add  that  it  is  but  part  of  the  business  ...  of  an 

1  Stone,  Life  and  Times  of  Sir  William  Johnson,  I,  225.   Sheldon, 
History  of  Deerfield,  I,  543. 

5 


WILLIAMS  COLLEGE 

officer  to  instruct  his  men  in  their  Duty  as  soldiers 
and  see  that  they  do  it,  but  to  suppress  vice  and  .  .  . 
immorality,  to  inculcate  sobriety,  temperance  and 
Christian  virtue;  .  .  .  and  I  hope  that  you  will  leave 
this  witness  in  the  breasts  ...  of  your  soldiers  that 
you  have  led  them  by  your  precepts  and  example 
in  the  paths  of  virtue.  What  a  noble  Example  has 
Col.  Stoddard  left  every  military  officer  who  had  the 
happiness  to  be  acquainted  with  him.  .  .  .  Whilst  I 
mention  that  great  man  whose  face  we  shall  see  no 
more,  I  would  Drop  a  tear  with  you  over  his  grave.  I 
know  his  Death  must  sensibly  touch  you.  .  .  .  Let  his 
shining  example  continually  live  with  us.  I  hope  a 
good  providence  will  preserve  health  to  you  and  your 
Soldiers  &  save  you  from  falling  into  the  hands  of  the 
Enemy/'  l 

The  seven  years  of  King  George's  War  were  fol- 
lowed by  seven  years  of  peace.  For  the  first  half  of 
this  latter  period  —  the  years  from  1748  until  well  on 
into  1752  —  Captain  Williams  seems  to  have  re- 
mained at  Fort  Massachusetts,  where  life  must  have 
been  somewhat  vacant  and  monotonous.  He  had  the 
respect  and  affection  of  the  little  garrison  and  that 
was  something.  "  His  kind  and  obliging  deportment," 
Dr.  West  wrote,  "his  generosity  and  condescension 

greatly  endeared  him  to  his  soldiers He  frequently 

entered  into  the  pastimes  .  .  .  upon  an  equal  footing 
with  them  and  permitted  every  decent  freedom;  and 
again,  when  the  diversions  were  over,  he,  with  ease 
and  dignity,  became  the  Captain."  His  official  duties, 

1  Israel  Williams,  Letters  and  Papers,  I,  32. 

2  Mass.  His.  Society,  Collections,  vni,  48. 

6 


THE  FOUNDER 

such  as  making  out  muster-rolls,  ordering  supplies  of 
medicine,  provisions,  and  New  England  rum,  were 
not  burdensome.  On  one  occasion  the  usual  routine 
was  interrupted  by  the  appearance  of  a  deputation  of 
Indians,  who  claimed  to  own  the  land  upon  which  the 
fort  stood  and  wanted  to  be  paid  for  it.  These  enter- 
prising aborigines  did  not  succeed  in  collecting  their 
bill. 

At  least  one  parcel  of  books  was  forwarded  to  the 
founder  in  the  months  of  relative  quiet.  It  would  be 
interesting  to  know  something  more  about  these  books 
than  that  he  was  impatient  to  get  them  and  that  they 
were  packed  with  care.  "I  will  Do  'em  up  well,"  his 
half-sister,  Mrs.  Abigail  Sergeant,  wrote  Thomas 
Williams,  July  18,  1750,  "Send  'em  to  ye  fort  [Massa- 
chusetts] Next  week.  They  shall  Be  Sealed  with  orders 
not  to  Be  Broke.  Books  gett  much  Damage  by 
Transport.'1  * 

Tiring  of  the  petty  round  of  garrison  life,  Ephraim 
Williams  spent  the  second  half  of  this  peaceful  inter- 
val partly  at  Stockbridge  where  a  serious  crisis  in  the 
affairs  of  his  family  required  attention,  and  partly 
at  Hatfield,  the  home  of  an  attractive  cousin,  Eliza- 
beth Williams,  to  whom,  if  a  persistent  tradition  may 
be  trusted,  he  was  by  no  means  indifferent.  But  this 
intermediate  period,  wherever  he  may  have  spent  it, 
was  essentially  a  time  of  waiting  and  vacuum. 

Viewed  in  their  larger  aspects  these  seven  years 

must  be  reckoned  merely  as  a  truce  during  the  long 

fight  for  North  America,  while  the  combatants  took 

breath  and  prepared  to  renew  the  undecided  struggle. 

1  R.  H.  W.  Dwight,  Collection. 

7 


WILLIAMS  COLLEGE 

In  this  critical  time  of  suspense,  when  it  became  evi- 
dent that  hostilities  would  presently  be  resumed,  the 
most  active  and  efficient  leader  among  the  colonials 
was  William  Shirley,  Governor  of  Massachusetts. 
He  drew  up  plans  for  fitting  out  four  considerable 
expeditions  which  were  to  attempt  the  capture  of 
as  many  French  military  posts  —  Crown  Point,  on 
Lake  Champlain;  Fort  Beausejour,  in  Acadia;  Fort 
Duquesne,  at  the  junction  of  the  Allegheny  and  Mo- 
nongahela  Rivers;  and  Fort  Niagara,  dominating  the 
passage  between  Lakes  Ontario  and  Erie.  This  com- 
prehensive plan  received  the  formal  approval  of  a 
council  of  war  held  in  Alexandria,  Virginia,  April  14, 
1755,  at  which  General  Edward  Braddock,  commander- 
in-chief  of  His  Majesty's  forces,  and  five  colonial 
governors  were  present. 

The  only  one  of  these  campaigns  with  which  we  are 
particularly  concerned  is  that  against  Crown  Point, 
a  fortified  post  of  great  strategic  importance,  as  it 
practically  controlled  the  most  practicable  route  from 
New  York  to  Montreal.  Since  several  colonies  — 
Massachusetts,  New  Hampshire,  Connecticut,  Rhode 
Island,  and  New  York  —  were  to  take  part  in  the 
expedition  and  jealousies  abounded,  it  was  not  easy 
to  find  a  satisfactory  leader.  Governor  Shirley  solved 
the  problem  by  selecting  a  civilian  for  the  position  — 
William  Johnson,  who  had  lived  in  the  Mohawk 
country  seventeen  years  and  developed  remarkable 
skill  in  dealing  with  Indians.  The  Alexandria  coun- 
cil, fully  persuaded  that  a  man  who  could  manage  the 
Six  Nations  would  be  able  to  capture  Crown  Point, 
not  only  confirmed  his  appointment,  but  declared 

8 


THE  FOUNDER 

him  to  be  "the  properest  person  to  have  command 
of  the  expedition."  1  Johnson  himself,  however,  was 
not  so  sure  about  it  and  accepted  the  position  with 
some  reluctance  and  misgiving.2 

The  Massachusetts  quota  of  troops  comprised  three 
regiments,  one  of  which  Hampshire  County,  then 
including  the  Berkshires,  must  furnish.  Nobody  in 
that  county  could  undertake  the  task  of  recruiting  it 
with  any  such  assurance  of  success  as  Ephraim  Wil- 
liams. Every  one  liked  and  trusted  him.  "His  ad- 
dress/' Dr.  West  tells  us,  "was  easy  and  his  manners 
pleasing  and  conciliatory.  Affable  and  facetious,  he 
could  make  himself  agreeable  in  all  companies;  and 
was  very  generally  esteemed,  respected  and  beloved." 3 
The  four  hundred  and  twenty  "private  men,"  whose 
names  appear  on  the  muster-roll  of  this  Hampshire 
regiment,  were  readily  secured.  Commissioned  as 
their  colonel  March  28,  1755,  Ephraim  Williams  en- 
tered upon  the  final  period  of  his  military  service  — 
a  brief  period  of  twenty-three  weeks  and  three  days.4 
He  seems  to  have  perceived,  indistinctly  it  may  be, 
the  momentous  nature  of  the  issues  involved  in  the  re- 
awakened struggle.  Though  he  had  probably  never 
heard  of  the  ambitious  schemes  that  fascinated  dar- 
ing spirits  in  the  cabinet  of  Louis  XV,  —  schemes  to 
check  the  westward  movement  of  English  colonists 
by  a  chain  of  forts  from  the  Great  Lakes  to  the  Gulf 
of  Mexico,  and  perhaps  ultimately  drive  them  out 

1  Documentary  History  of  the  State  of  New  York,  II,  379. 

2  Correspondence  of  William  Shirley,  n,  169. 
8  Mass.  His.  Society,  Collections,  vin,  48. 

4  Mass.  Archives,  Muster-Rolls,  xciv,  7. 


WILLIAMS  COLLEGE 

of  the  continent,  —  yet  he  did  not  fail  to  realize  the 
necessity  of  putting  an  end  once  for  all  to  the  French 
peril.  "  I  have  a  great  desire,"  he  wrote,  —  "  I  have 
a  great  desire  Canada  should  be  demolished."  l 

Albany,  then  a  palisaded,  frontier  town  of  twenty- 
eight  hundred  inhabitants,  was  the  natural  base  for 
the  expedition  against  Crown  Point,  and  on  the  3ist 
of  May  the  Hampshire  regiment  began  to  move  to- 
ward this  rendezvous — "each  man  being  allowed  6 
days  for  his  march"  of  fifty  or  sixty  miles.  By  the 
middle  of  July  three  thousand  provincials  and  two 
or  three  hundred  Indians  had  reached  the  camp. 

The  personal  letters  of  Colonel  Williams,  written 
during  the  two  months  he  remained  in  Albany,  four 
of  which  have  been  preserved,  are  unmistakably  ap- 
prehensive and  despondent.  Especially  is  this  true 
of  the  latest,  dated  Tuesday,  July  22.  Local  condi- 
tions—  what  with  the  little  army  of  undisciplined 
yeomanry  and  Mohawk  Indians  mustered  for  the 
expedition,  the  inadequacy  of  the  commissariat,  the 
primitive  means  of  transportation,  and  the  obtrusive 
evidence  of  confusion  everywhere  —  were  sufficiently 
unpromising,  but  during  the  preceding  evening  ru- 
mors reached  him  that  the  expedition  against  Fort 
Duquesne  had  met  with  a  crushing  disaster.  Colonel 
Williams  was  greatly  depressed  by  the  news,  and  in 
this  despondent  mood  wrote  his  final  letter  from  Al- 
bany: "It  is  to  be  feared  that  General  Braddock  is 
cut  to  pieces  and  a  great  part  of  his  army.  .  .  .  The 
Lord  have  mercy  upon  poor  New  England."  2 

The  period  of  delay  continued  eleven  days  after 

1  Israel  Williams,  Letters  and  Papers,  I,  120.          *  Ibid.,  I.,  156. 

IO 


THE  FOUNDER 

this  black  Tuesday.  On  the  2d  of  August,  Colonel 
Williams  broke  camp  and  set  out  for  Great  Carrying 
Place,  a  military  station  on  the  Hudson  River  about 
sixty  miles  above  Albany.1  He  made  slow  progress, 
and  did  not  reach  his  destination  until  August  14. 
It  was  a  hard  trip  and  the  men  are  said  to  "have 
been  extremely  beat  out  in  hauling  the  battoes  over 
the  several  falls."  General  Johnson  also  arrived  the 
same  day  "with  about  20  Indians  fit  for  war,"  2  and 
remained  until  August  26,  in  doubt  what  to  do  next  — 
whether  to  move  northeast  to  Wood  Creek  or  north- 
west to  the  foot  of  Lake  George. 

Three  of  Colonel  Williams*  letters,  written  during 
the  time  of  hesitation  at  Great  Carrying  Place,  have 
been  preserved.  From  the  tenor  of  the  first,  dated 
August  1 6,  it  would  seem  that  some  vague,  undefined 
presentment  of  evil  haunted  him.  "I  hereby  mourn 
with  you  in  the  loss  of  y'r  Brother,"  he  wrote  Israel 
Williams.  "  Pray  God  to  sanctify  itjio  all  of  us,  &  fit 
us  for  our  own  turns  which  will  soon  arrive — how  soon 
God  only  knows.  I  beg  your  prayers  for  us  all  &  me 
in  perticular."  3  In  the  last  letter,  dated  August  23, 
personal  considerations  give  place  to  anxieties  about 
the  conditions  and  prospects  of  the  expedition,  which 
could  hardly  fail  to  be  disquieting.  Other  adverse  ele- 
ments were  plenty,  but,  in  the  opinion  of  Colonel  Wil- 

1  The  post  had  an  unusual  succession  of  names.  A  letter  from  Moses 
Porter  —  captain  in  Ephraim  Williams'  regiment  —  is  "  Dated  at 
the  Carrying  Place,  alias  Fort  Nicholson,  alias  Lydius  fort,  alias 
Tadmor  in  the  Wilderness  i6th  of  August."  The  next  letter,  however, 
written  at  the  same  place  two  days  later,  gives  his  address  as  "The 
Fort  without  a  Name."  (Porter,  MSS.  letters,  Mass.  His.  Society.) 
The  modern  name  of  the  town  is  Fort  Edward. 

1  Israel  Williams,  Letters  and  Papers,  I,  170.  8  Ibid.,  I,  170. 

II 


WILLIAMS  COLLEGE 

liams,  General  Johnson  could  not  capture  Crown  Point 
with  his  present  force.  Instead  of  three  thousand  men 
there  ought  to  have  been  ten  or  twelve  thousand.  "  If 
we  should  be  beat,"  he  wrote,  "our  country  is  lost."  1 
General  Johnson  finally  decided  to  proceed  toward 
Crown  Point  by  way  of  Lake  George  and  ordered  the 
pioneers  to  hew  a  passable  road  through  the  four- 
teen miles  of  pine  forest  that  lay  between  him  and  the 
foot  of  it.2  Leaving  a  garrison  at  Great  Carrying  Place, 
he  started  Tuesday,  August  26,  with  the  rest  of  his 
army  for  the  new  camp  in  a  wilderness  where  "no 
house  was  ever  before  built  nor  a  rod  of  land  cleared," 3 
and  reached  his  destination  late  Thursday  afternoon. 
The  secular  activities  and  emergencies  of  the  situation 
did  not  prevent  a  due  religious  observance  of  the  two 
following  Sundays,  as  preaching  services,  attended  by 
Mohawks  as  well  as  colonials,  were  held  on  both  of 
them.  But  the  enemy  —  a  mixed  force  of  Indians, 
Canadians,  and  French  regulars  under  the  command 
of  Baron  Dieskau 4  —  did  not  spend  these  Sundays  in 
divine  worship.  Whatever  they  may  have  been  about 
on  the  first  of  them,  on  the  other  they  "  marched  nine 
leagues,  always  through  woods  and  over  mountains," 5 
and  reached  the  vicinity  of  the  English  forces.  During 
the  evening  of  the  second  Sunday  —  September  7  — 
General  Johnson  learned,  and  evidently  to  his  sur- 
prise, that  the  invaders  were  in  the  neighborhood. 

1  Israel  Williams,  Letters  and  Papers,  I,  170. 

2  Stone,  Life  and  Times  of  Sir  William  Johnson,  i,  507. 

3  Documentary  History  of  the  State  of  New  York,  n,  689. 

4  "An  elderly  man  and  very  much  of  a  gentleman."  (Captain  Peter 
Wraxall,  Documents  Relative  to  the  Colonial  History  of  the  State  of  New 
York,  VI,  1003.)  6  Ibid.,  x,  339. 

12 


THE  FOUNDER 

After  a  council  of  war,  held  the  next  morning,  he  or- 
dered Colonel  Williams,  who  possessed  his  confidence 
in  a  greater  degree  than  any  other  officer  of  the  staff,1 
to  make  a  reconnoissance  for  the  purpose  of  discover- 
ing their  whereabouts  and  intentions.  The  latter  left 
the  camp,  "  between  eight  and  nine  o'clock,"  with  one 
thousand  colonials  and  two  hundred  Indians.  Though 
an  experienced  frontiersman  and  familiar  with  the 
tactics  of  border  warfare,  he  failed  to  protect  his  front 
and  flanks  with  scouts  and  consequently  fell  into  a 
disastrous  ambuscade. 

"My  dear  brother  Ephraim,"  wrote  Thomas  Wil- 
liams in  a  letter  to  his  wife,  ".  .  .  was  killed  in  the  be- 
ginning of  the  action  by  a  ball  through  his  head."  2 
The  provincials,  thrown  into  confusion  by  the  sudden 
attack  and  the  loss  of  their  commander,  fled  toward 
the  camp,  which  the  enemy,  in  hot  pursuit,  attempted 
unsuccessfully  to  carry  by  storm.  Though  failing  in 
their  first  dash,  they  did  not  give  up  the  fight  on  that 
account.  "The  fire  began  between  n  and  12  of  the 
clock,"  wrote  Seth  Pomeroy,  lieutenant-colonel  of 
Ephraim  Williams'  regiment,  "and  continued  until 
near  five  in  the  afternoon  —  the  most  violent  fire 
perhaps  that  was  ever  heard  of  in  any  battle  in  this 
country.  Then  we  beat  them  off  the  ground."  3  This 

1  American  Review,  VH,  602. 

2  Historical  Magazine,  vn,  212.   Thomas  Williams  was  surgeon  of 
the  Hampshire  regiment.    "It  is  said  that  one  of  our  men,  observing 
an  Indian  taking  his  aim  at  Colonel  Williams,  fired  his  piece  at  the  In- 
dian and  shot  him  dead  upon  the  spot ;  so  that  this  worthy  commander, 
and  his  savage  slaughterer  fell  at  once  and  probably  at  the  same  in- 
stant."   (Niles,  History  of  the  French  and  Indian  Wars,  in  Collections, 
Mass.  His.  Society,  Fourth  Series,  v,  393.) 

*  Seth  Pomeroy,  Diary',  quoted  in  Trumbull's  History  of  Northampton, 

13 


WILLIAMS  COLLEGE 

inconclusive  victory  was  acclaimed  far  and  wide 
among  the  colonies.  The  Governor  of  New  York  ap- 
pointed Tuesday,  October  2,  "as  a  day  of  public 
Thanksgiving  to  Almighty  God  "  *  and  Johnson  him- 
self received  from  King  George  "  the  dignity  of  a  Baro- 
net of  Great  Britain."  One  Massachusetts  colonel, 
Timothy  Ruggles,  who  sometimes  spoke  his  mind 
with  astonishing  freedom,  took  a  different  view  of 
the  situation.  "General/'  he  said  to  Johnson  after  the 
battle,  "General,  I  hope  the  damnable  blunders  you 
have  made  this  day  may  be  sanctified  to  your  spiritual 
and  everlasting  good."  2  The  best  that  can  be  said 
for  the  expedition  is  that  it  achieved  a  qualified  and 
negative  success. 

The  body  of  Colonel  Williams  remained  undisturbed 
on  the  spot  where  he  fell  until  the  morning  after  the 
fight,  when  it  was  recovered  and  buried  under  a 
neighboring  pine  tree.  A  week  later  Thomas  Wil- 
liams made  an  inventory  of  the  contents  of  his  army 
chest.3  Among  the  items  in  this  inventory  were  not 
only  such  articles  of  a  Berkshire  gentleman's  ward- 
robe as  a  pair  of  leather  breeches,  a  broadcloth  coat 
with  yellow  metal  buttons  and  a  French  bearskin 
coat,  but  also  eleven  books  —  a  species  of  baggage 
which  none  of  the  other  New  England  colonels, 
though  two  of  them,  Timothy  Ruggles  and  Phineas 
Lyman,  were  college  graduates,  seem  to  have  in- 

II,  269.  "  Our  cannon  .  .  .  were  heard  down  as  low  as  Saratoga," 
Thomas  Williams  wrote,  "  notwithstanding  the  wind  was  in  the  north 
and  something  considerable."  (Historical  Magazine,  vn,  212.) 

1  Documentary  History  of  the  State  of  New  York,  698. 

2  Jonathan  Smith,  in  Proceedings,  Mass.  His.  Society,  XLVIII,  43. 
8  Appendix  I. 

14 


THE  FOUNDER 

eluded  in  their  outfitting  for  the  campaign.  What 
were  the  books  which  Ephraim  Williams  did  include 
among  his  necessaries?  Four  of  them  —  a  New  Testa- 
ment, the  Psalms  of  David,  an  Annual,  "The  Court 
and  City  Kalendar,"  and  Eland's  "Military  Dis- 
cipline" —  one  might  expect  to  find  in  the  list,  but 
that  is  hardly  the  case  with  the  others,  "Roman 
History  .  .  .  By  way  of  dialogue,"  1  the  "  Independent 
Whig"  in  two  volumes,  and  "  Cato's  Letters"  in  four. 
The  history  is  perhaps  less  surprising  than  the  remain- 
ing six  books,  written  by  Thomas  Gordon  and  John 
Trenchard,  whose  names  can  scarcely  be  called  house- 
hold words  at  the  present  day.  They  are  a  series  of 
vigorous,  aggressive,  hard-hitting  essays  on  a  great 
variety  of  subjects  social,  political,  theological,  and 
academic.  While  they  may  not  rival  the  "Letters  of 
Junius"  in  declamatory  invective,  like  them  they 
belong  to  the  literature  of  protest,  assailing  in  par- 
ticular the  High  Church  propaganda  of  the  day  and 
in  general  anybody  and  everybody  who  "played  the 
devil  in  God's  name."  That  they  would  stir  up  con- 
troversy was  to  be  expected.  At  least  one  "  Fanatical 
and  Dissatisfied  Clergyman"  —  the  Bishop  of  Sodor 
and  Mann —  "  bellowed  out  his  curse  " 2  against  them. 
For  Ephraim  Williams  these  militant  books  must  have 
had  special  attractions  or  he  would  hardly  have  taken 
the  trouble  to  transport  them  over  the  rough,  primi- 

1  A  New  and  Easy  Method  to  understand  the  Roman  History  .  .  .  By 
way  of  dialogue;  for  the  use  of  the  Duke  of  Burgundy.  Done  out  of 
French.  ...  By  Mr.  T.  Brown:  pp. 324.  R.  Baldwin:  London,  1695.  12°. 
Eighth  edition,  1731.  There  is  a  copy  of  this  book  in  the  Collection  of 
Mr.  R.  H.  W.  Dwight. 

*  Independent  Whig,  I,  xc. 

15 


WILLIAMS  COLLEGE 

tive  highway  from  Stockbridge  to  Albany,  up  the 
Hudson  River  to  Great  Carrying  Place  and  through 
fourteen  miles  of  wilderness  to  Lake  George.  That 
a  colonial  colonel,  who  on  going  to  the  wars  put  eleven 
books  into  his  army  chest,  became  the  founder  of  a 
college,  should  not  occasion  surprise.1 

The  memorable  day  in  the  forty  years  and  six 
months  of  Ephraim  Williams'  life  was  that  black  Tues- 
day at  Albany — July  22,  1755  —  when  he  "made  and 
published"  his  last  will  and  testament,  declaring  it 
to  be  his  ' '  Pleasure  &  Desire ' '  that  his  residuary  estate 
should  be  "Appropriated  toward  the  Support  and 
maintenance  of  a  free  School  (in  a  township  .  .  .  Com- 
monly Called  the  west  township)  for  Ever,"  provided 
that  it  "  fall  within  the  Jurisdiction  of  Massachusetts 
bay,"  and  also  that  "the  Governor  &  General  Court 
give  the  Said  township  the  name  of  Williamstown."  A 
project  of  this  kind  had  been  long  in  mind.  Dr.  West 
says  that  he  "witnessed  with  humane  and  painful 
sensations,  the  dangers,  difficulties  and  hardships" 
which  the  first  settlers  of  the  region  encountered. 
"To  encourage  them,  he  intimated  his  intention  of 
doing  something  liberal  and  handsome  for  them."  2 
That  "something,"  which  took  definite  shape  in  his 
will,  gave  distinction  to  a  career  otherwise  incon- 
spicuous. 

1  Appendix  II.  *  Mass.  His.  Society,  Collections,  vin,  48. 


CHAPTER  II 

WEST  TOWNSHIP  AND  THE  FREE   SCHOOL 

IN  J755  West  Township,  the  site  of  the  proposed  Free 
School,  was  an  insignificant  hamlet  on  the  southern 
border  of  "a  great  and  terrible  wilderness  .  .  .  which 
reached  to  Canada."  1  Only  sixteen  years  had  elapsed 
since  Ephraim  Williams,  Senior,  and  Thomas  Wells 
made  the  first  survey  of  the  region.  Their  work,  prose- 
cuted under  serious  difficulties,  appears  to  have  been 
indifferently  well  done,  and  in  1749  the  Legislature 
directed  Oliver  Partridge  and  two  associates  "to 
repair  to  the  Province  Lands  near  Hoosuck  .  .  .  with 
a  skilful  surveyor  and  chainman  under  oath  .  .  .  lay 
out  Two  Townships  .  .  .  and  return  a  correct  Plat."  2 
April  6,  1750,  a  third  legislative  committee  divided 
the  "Westernmost"  of  them  into  "63  Houselots," 
which  the  authorities  sold  two  years  later  to  forty- 
six  purchasers,  thirteen  of  whom  were  soldiers  at  Fort 
M  assachuse  t  ts . 3 

Ephraim  Williams,  Senior,  thought  that  the  new 
town  on  the  Hoosac  was  "very  accommodable  for 
settlements,"  4  but  families  in  search  of  homes  had 
their  doubts  about  it.  Reasons  for  hesitation  were 
numerous  —  the  remoteness  of  the  "  plantation,"  the 

1  Jones,  History  of  Stockbridge,  78. 

2  Journal,  H.R.,  April  18,  1749. 

8  Mass.  Archives,  cxv,  634.  Perry,  Origins  in  Williamstown,  382. 
4  Mass.  Archives,  CCXLIII,  75. 

17 


WILLIAMS  COLLEGE 

evil  reputation  of  the  winter  climate,  and  the  still 
more  dissuasive  circumstance  that  this  region,  across 
which  the  Old  Mohawk  Trail  ran,  was  notoriously 
"vulnerable  to  the  guns  and  tomahawks  of  Canada." 
Though  the  French  and  Indian  Terror  came  to  an  end 
with  the  surrender  of  Montreal  in  1760,  the  isolation 
continued,  with  slow  and  grudging  abatement,  for 
almost  a  century  after  that  decisive  event.  West 
Township,  renamed  Williamstown  in  1765,  had  no 
post-office  until  1797.  During  this  long  period  mail  fa- 
cilities were  a  matter  of  accident  or  personal  favor. 
In  the  last  decade  of  it  Simon  Hough,  who  rode  up 
and  down  the  county  delivering  to  subscribers  their 
copies  of  the  "Western  Star"  published  at  Stock- 
bridge,  acted  on  occasion  as  postman,  but  his  weekly 
visits  did  little  to  break  the  solitude.1 

There  was,  it  is  true,  an  early  and  ambitious  at- 
tempt to  establish  tri-weekly  communications  with 
the  outside  world.  Toward  the  close  of  the  year  1796 
"the  proprietors  .  .  .  inform  the  Public  that  they 
have  started  a  Line  of  Stages  from  New  York  to 
Bennington  in  Vermont,"  by  way  of  the  Berkshires.2 
These  stages  continued  in  operation  at  least  a  year, 
since  on  the  6th  of  October,  1797,  the  postmaster 
at  Stockbridge  announced  that  they  had  begun  to 
carry  the  mails.3  But  the  enterprise  was  short-lived 

1  From  his  rather  frequent  "  Notices  to  Patrons,"  it  would  appear 
that  Simon  often  found  collections  slow.     "I  suppose  the  quarters 
seem  to  be  soon  out  to  you,  my  friends,"  he  said  in  one  of  them,  "  but 
as  I  have  to  run  in  debt  20  dollars  for  your  papers,  and  then  tug  around 
thirteen  weeks  before  I  get  my  pay,  it  seems  long  enough  to  me." 
(Western  Star,  June  30,  1795.) 

2  Appendix  n. 

8  Western  Star,  October  17,  1797. 

18 


WEST  TOWNSHIP  AND  THE  FREE  SCHOOL 

and  nobody  attempted  anything  of  the  sort  again 
until  1826  when  another  tri- weekly  line  of  stages 
began  to  run  from  Bennington  to  Pittsfield.1  In 
1859  the  opening  of  the  Troy  and  Boston  Railroad 
put  this  line  out  of  business,  and  then  in  a  certain 
limited  sense  former  things  may  be  said  to  have  passed 
away. 

While  the  paragraph  in  the  founder's  will  which 
contained  the  bequest  failed  to  give  definite  instruc- 
tions in  regard  to  the  character  of  the  proposed  school, 
it  was  specific  and  positive  upon  two  points  —  West 
Township  must  become  Williamstown  and  remain 
within  the  jurisdiction  of  Massachusetts.  If  these 
conditions  should  not  be  "complied  with/'  the  ex- 
ecutors were  directed  to  appropriate  "the  moneys 
...  to  some  pious  and  charitable  uses."  The  change 
of  name  gave  no  trouble,  but  a  rather  serious  con- 
troversy arose  over  the  question  of  jurisdiction  — 
whether  the  region  now  known  as  the  Berkshires  be- 
longed to  New  York  or  Massachusetts  —  a  con- 
troversy which  was  brought  to  the  attention  of  the 
General  Court  for  the  first  time  January  3,  1738-39, 
when  Thomas  Wells,  of  Deerfield,  presented  a  me- 
morial protesting  against  the  encroachments  of  "  the 
Dutch"  upon  the  western  borders  of  the  province.2 
Ephraim  Williams,  Senior,  and  the  complainant 
were  ordered  to  "view  the  Land  on  the  Ousac 
River"  3  and  to  lay  out  there  two  townships.  This 
was  the  survey  of  1739  to  which  attention  has  al- 

1  Field,  History  of  Pittsfield,  24. 

2  Journal,  H.R.,  January  3,  1738-39. 
8  Ibid.,  January  26,  1738-39. 

19 


WILLIAMS  COLLEGE 

ready  been  called.  June  7  the  committee  made  a 
brief  written  report  to  the  Legislature,  in  which  they 
regretted  that  some  lines  of  the  new  townships  could 
not  be  "perfected"  in  consequence  of  "the  Great 
Opposition  of  Sundry  Gentn  from  Albany."  As  they 
intimated  they  would  like  to  speak  more  in  detail 
about  their  experiences,  the  General  Court  decided 
to  hear  them  the  next  day,  when  "Captain  Ephraim 
Williams  and  Captain  Thomas  Wells,"  so  the  legis- 
lative journal  runs,  "attending  at  the  door  .  .  .  were 
admitted  in  and  gave  a  Particular  Account  ...  of 
the  Treatment  they  met  with  from  Some  Dutch  Gen- 
tlemen of  Albany  while  they  were  on  the  Land." 
Evidently  Ephraim  Williams,  Senior,  got  a  very  un- 
favorable impression  of  them  and  his  son  did  not  pur- 
pose to  found  a  Free  School  at  West  Township  for 
their  benefit.1 

Then  only  a  few  weeks  before  the  founder  made  his 
will  there  had  been  alarming  disorders  in  the  disputed 
territory  between  the  partisans  of  New  York  and 
Massachusetts  Bay  —  disorders  which  resulted  in 
"the  murder  of  William  Rees,"  in  the  destruction  of 
considerable  property  and  the  arrest  of  "  Rioters"  by 
the  authorities  of  both  provinces. 

This  regrettable  border  feud  affected  not  only  the 
will  of  Ephraim  Williams,  but  the  military  campaign 

1  This  Albany  brand  of  people  also  grievously  displeased  an  Indian 
missionary  whose  post  was  a  few  miles  west  of  Stockbridge,  as  appears 
from  the  following  entry  in  his  diary:  "  Lord's- Day,  Aug.  28  (1743). 
Was  much  perplex'd  with  some  irreligious  Dutch-men.  All  their  dis- 
courses turned  upon  Things  of  the  World.  ...  Oh!  what  a  Hell  it 
would  be  to  spend  an  Eternity  with  such  Men."  (Jonathan  Edwards, 
Life  of  David  Brainerd,  79.) 

20 


WEST  TOWNSHIP  AND  THE  FREE  SCHOOL 

in  which  he  was  engaged.  The  chief  New  York  claim- 
ant of  the  lands  in  controversy  was  the  proprie- 
tor of  "the  Manor  of  Livingston/'  and  public  sen- 
timent among  the  Massachusetts  settlers  ran  high 
against  him.  May  6  a  gang  of  them  raided  the  iron 
mills  which  he  had  built  at  Ancram,  —  a  town  well 
within  the  boundaries  of  New  York,  —  carried  off 
the  workmen  and  locked  them  up  in  jail  at  Spring- 
field. Livingston,  writing  to  the  Governor  of  New 
York,  June  23,  said  they  were  still  there  and  his  mills 
idle.  The  raid,  he  continued,  "has  put  it  out  of  my 
power  to  furnish  .  .  .  the  Carriage  wheels  and  .  .  .  the 
Quantity  of  Shot  I  engaged  to  deliver  for  the  Expe- 
dition to  ...  Crown  point.  ...  As  I  had  the  Expedi- 
tion very  much  at  heart  I  ordered  my  Furnace  to  be 
immediately  repaired  at  a  great  Expense  .  .  .  that 
I  still  might  be  able  to  furnish  the  Shott  .  .  .  that  the 
Expedition  might  not  be  retarded  . . .  but  no  workmen 
yett  so  that  I  cannot  proceed  in  the  casting  of  them." l 
The  executors  of  the  founder's  will  were  his  half 
cousin,  Colonel  Israel  Williams,  of  Hatfield,  and  Colo- 
nel John  Worthington,  of  Springfield.  A  vigorous, 
brainy,  dominating  "river-god,"  the  former  became 
a  conspicuous  figure  in  the  Western  Massachusetts  of 
his  time.  Unfortunately  for  his  personal  comfort  and 
local  reputation  he  espoused  the  royalist  cause  at  the 
opening  of  the  Revolutionary  War.  In  a  letter  to 
Governor  Gage,  August  10,  1774,  ne  asked  for  sup- 
port against  the  fury  of  mobs  which  seemed  to  be 
stirring  in  many  places.2  He  had  occasion  for  dis- 

1  Documentary  History  of  the  State  of  New  York,  m,  484,  485. 

2  Mass.  His.  Society,  Collections,  Fourth  Series,  x,  515. 

21 


WILLIAMS  COLLEGE 

quietude,  as  his  indignant  neighbors  subsequently 
attempted  "to  smoke  him  to  a  Whig"  and  the  au- 
thorities, considering  this  penalty  inadequate,  sup- 
plemented it  by  confining  him  in  jail  at  Northampton 
for  seven  months.  Colonel  Worthington,  the  other 
executor,  was  also  a  Tory,  but  of  a  less  aggressive 
type  and  escaped  serious  annoyance. 

The  estate  of  Colonel  Williams  turned  out  to  be 
a  modest  one,  amounting  to  only  £1733-8-10  or 
$5788.07.  Yet  more  than  ten  years  elapsed  before 
the  appraisal  was  completed  and  the  inventory  ap- 
peared in  three  instalments  —  the  first  of  them  dated 
"May  and  June,"  1756;  the  second,  December  28, 
1761 ;  and  the  last,  May,  I766.1  One  item  only  in  this 
inventory  requires  any  present  notice  —  the  Stock- 
bridge  homestead  of  fifteen  hundred  and  five  acres 
sold  to  the  founder  by  his  father,  September  28,  1752, 
for  the  sum  of  £1000.  The  purchase  included  also 
certain  rights  of  land  in  neighboring  towns  and  three 
slaves  —  "my  negro  servant  .  .  .  Moni,  my  negro  boy 
.  .  .  London,  also  my  negro  girl  Cloe  —  the  latter 
not  to  be  for  his  use  or  service  until  after  my  own 
and  my  wife's  death."  2 

Ephraim  Williams,  Senior,  not  only  disposed  of  his 
property  in  Stockbridge,  but  presently  removed  to 
Deerfield  where  he  spent  the  brief  remainder  of  his 
life.  What  led  him  to  abandon  the  town  with  which 
he  had  been  so  long  and  so  prominently  connected? 

1  Registry  of  Probate,  Northampton. 

9  X  216  Registry  of  Deeds,  Springfield.  Another  negro  boy,  J.  Ro- 
mano, was  added  by  purchase  to  the  establishment  the  following 
February.  (Sheldon,  History  of  Deerfield,  n,  903.) 

22 


WEST  TOWNSHIP  AND  THE  FREE  SCHOOL 

It  should,  perhaps,  be  mentioned,  in  passing,  what- 
ever connection  this  circumstance  may  have  with  his 
change  of  residence,  that  during  the  spring  of  1752 
-  five  or  six  months  before  the  transactions  of  Sep- 
tember 27  —  he  had  a  serious  attack  of  what  he  calls 
"numb  Palsy."  1  Though  he  rallied  from  this  attack, 
his  state  of  mind  as  well  as  of  body  gave  friends  occa- 
sion for  worry  and  alarm.  "  He  went  away  from  us," 
his  daughter  Mrs.  Abigail  Dwight  wrote  her  brother, 
Thomas  Williams,  November  I,  1752,  "about  3  weeks 
past  for  Wethersfield.  Prornised  us  he  would  go  no- 
where Else.  But  ye  first  News  we  had  from  him  was 
that  He  Rid  all  one  Day  in  a  bad  Storm,  got  to 
Wethersd  late  at  Night.  Sett  out  Next  morning  for 
Newhaven,  rid  all  ye  Day  in  a  hard  South  westerly 
wind,  there  he  got  in  ye  Notion  of  treating  with  their 
General  Assembly  Day  after  Day  on  Indian  affairs, 
then  returns  to  Newington,  there  writes  us  He  is  go- 
ing to  Stonington,  then  to  Deerfield,  then  to  Boston." 
Mrs.  Dwight  is  especially  anxious  in  regard  to  the  pro- 
posed visit  to  Boston  —  "it  will  vastly  disserve  our 
Public  affairs  &  I  know  not  but  intirely  ruin  us." 
Thomas  Williams  was  urged  to  prevent  the  Boston 
trip  "by  one  wile  or  other.  ...  I  Beg  you  Do  all  in 
your  Power  to  get  him  in  ye  mind  of  Coming  Home 
as  Soon  as  may  Be,  if  you  have  any  love  for  him  or 
us."  2 

No  doubt  the  anxieties  which  appear  so  unmis- 

1  Some  Old  Letters,  Scribner's  Magazine,  xvii,  294.  These  letters 
were  nineteen  in  number,  the  first  dated  January  16, 1749,  and  the  last 
March  30,  1754.  (Appendix  III.) 

1  R.  H.  W.  Dwight,  Collection. 

23 


WILLIAMS  COLLEGE 

takably  in  the  letter  of  Mrs.  Dwight  were  in  part  oc- 
casioned by  her  father's  precarious  state  of  health. 
But  another  matter  of  large  family  importance  con- 
tributed materially  to  them  —  certain  "unhappy 
differences"  that  had  arisen  at  Stockbridge.  These 
differences  grew  out  of  an  attempt  on  the  part  of 
Ephraim  Williams,  Senior,  aided  by  a  little  group  of 
friends,  to  get  control  of  the  local  Indian  school  with 
its  considerable  patronage  and  revenues.1  As  the 
resident  missionary,  Jonathan  Edwards,  with  whom 
the  Williams  family  had  been  on  bad  terms  since  the 
recent  ecclesiastical  disturbances  at  Northampton, 
stood  in  the  way  of  their  schemes,  he  must  be  pushed 
out  of  it,  and  they  did  not  mince  their  words  in  set- 
ting forth  his  disqualifications  for  the  post  —  "an 
unfit  person,  of  no  service,  nor  likely  to  be  of  service 
in  the  work  of  the  ministry  in  this  place  ...  a  trouble- 
some person,  a  busybody  in  other  mens  matters,  one 
whom  the  Indians  disaffect,  whose  preaching  is  short 
and  unintelligible."  2 

Jonathan  Edwards,  though  "unspeakably  embar- 
rassed" by  the  situation,  did  not  propose  to  flee  be- 
fore his  enemies,  new  or  old.  When  aroused  he  was, 
it  is  hardly  necessary  to  remark,  a  controversialist  of 
the  most  formidable  character.  January  13,  1753,  he 
wrote  Governor  Pepperrell  a  letter  in  which  he  re- 
viewed the  whole  question  in  dispute  with  victorious 
clearness  and  force.  And  at  the  same  time  another 
long  and  vigorous  communication  was  sent  to  the 

1  The  school  was  established  in  1734,  with  the  Rev.  John  Sergeant 
as  the  first  missionary  in  charge.  Jonathan  Edwards  succeeded  him  in 
1750.  2  Mass.  Archives,  xxxn,  370,  371. 

24 


WEST  TOWNSHIP  AND  THE  FREE  SCHOOL 

authorities  at  Boston  signed  by  twelve  white  men  and 
forty- two  Indians,  comprising  the  entire  male  adult 
population  of  the  mission  except  the  little  Williams 
faction  —  a  communication  describing  at  some  length 
the  miserable  and  broken  condition  into  which  the 
restless,  haughty,  and  selfish  conduct  of  that  faction 
had  brought  them.  The  missionary  was  not  driven 
away.  He  remained  at  Stockbridge  until  the  great 
treatises  which  gave  him  his  reputation  as  a  philo- 
sophical theologian  were  written  —  remained  until 
1758  and  then  accepted  a  call  to  the  presidency  of 
the  College  of  New  Jersey,  while  Ephraim  Williams, 
Senior,  leader  of  the  opposition,  left  that  town  five 
years  before,  and,  if  we  may  believe  his  enemies,  "in 
chagrin  and  mortification  and  entire  loss  of  influence 
and  respect."  l  The  latter  removed  to  Deerfield,  where 
he  died  August  n,  1754. 

Like  an  early  constable  of  England,  Ephraim  Wil- 
liams, Senior,  seemed  to  have  two  souls  in  one  body. 
The  twelve  white  men  and  forty- two  Indians  of 
Stockbridge  who  signed  the  accusing  letter  sent  to 
the  authorities  at  Boston  might  denounce  him  as 
avaricious,  intriguing,  unscrupulous,  but  his  friends 
saw  him  in  a  different  light.  The  Rev.  Mr.  Ashley,  of 
Deerfield,  preached  the  sermon  at  his  funeral,  and  it 
stands  out  in  sharp  contrast  to  the  communication 
of  the  twelve  white  men  and  forty- two  Indians.  Our 
brother,  said  the  clergyman,  "always  bore  a  testi- 
mony against  vice  and  held  a  disposition  to  terrify 
the  worker  of  iniquity.  .  .  .  He  was  the  most  delightful 
companion  in  the  world.  ...  In  every  relation  his 
1  S.  E.  Dwight,  Life  of  Edwards,  518. 
25 


WILLIAMS  COLLEGE 

memory  will  be  precious.  .  .  .  He  was  a  lovely  friend 
and  an  excellent  Christian."  1 

If  funeral  eulogies  happen  to  be  under  suspicion, 
there  remain  "Some  Old  Letters"  of  the  Senior  Wil- 
liams, —  wise,  comprehending,  affectionate,  —  most 
of  them  written  during  the  Stockbridge  troubles, 
and  with  a  single  exception  to  his  son  Elijah,  half- 
brother  of  the  founder  and  then  a  student  in  the 
College  of  New  Jersey.  He  was  interested  in  the 
studies  of  the  young  man  and  urged  him  to  pay 
special  attention  to  his  English.  "  You  have  made  but 
poor  proficiency,"  he  remarked,  "in  writing  &  Spell- 
ing. If  you  don't  mind:  it  would  have  been  better 
.  .  .  that  you  had  never  gon  to  College:  a  scholar 
that  can  neither  write  nor  Spell  nor  Read  is  a  terrible 
Solecism:  your  brother  Eph[rai]m  earnestly  desires 
that  you  would  mind  in  every  article  mentioned  in  the 
Premises,  or  he  says  your  sisters  will  be  the  Better 
Schollars."  2  This  letter  was  written  in  May,  1752. 
A  year  later  he  resumed  the  subject  —  "I  observe 
that  you  have  minded  much  in  your  Wrighting,  never- 
theless you  have  left  Room  to  Grow,  therefore  shall 
continue  my  Instructions  to  you.  .  .  .  You  must  not 
follow  my  Hand  wrighting  for  an  Example:  for  I  am 
apt  to  mistake:  I  never  had  but  Common  English 
Learning."  3 

There  would  be  little  occasion  to  recall  in  these 
pages  the  unhappy  differences  at  Stockbridge,  had 
they  not  touched  the  younger  as  well  as  the  elder 

1  R.  H.  W.  Dwight,  Collection. 

*  Some  Old  Letters,  Scribner's  Magazine,  xvn,  254. 

*  Ibid.,  xvn,  256. 

26 


WEST  TOWNSHIP  AND  THE  FREE  SCHOOL 

Ephraim  Williams.  A  letter  of  the  former  on  the 
subject  to  the  Rev.  Mr.  Ashley,  May  2,  1751,  has 
recently  come  to  light.  It  was  printed  for  the  first 
time  in  an  appendix  to  the  second  edition  of  Professor 
Perry's  "  Origins  in  Williamstown."  l  "  Mr.  Edwards 
lately  wrote,"  said  the  founder  in  this  letter,  "to  Mr. 
Woodbridge  of  Stockbridge  .  .  .  that  I  have  done  all 
I  can  to  prevent  his  coming  (to  the  Indian  Mission). 
I  am  sorry  that  a  head  so  full  of  Divinity  should  be  so 
empty  of  Politics.  I  would  not  have  him  fail  of  going 
for  500  pounds,  since  they  are  so  set  for  him,  not  that 
I  think  that  he  will  ever  do  much  more  good  than  an 
other,  but  on  acct.  of  raising  the  price  of  my  land. 
Its  true  when  they  first  talkd  of  settling  him  I  was 
against  it,  gave  my  reasons,  &  sent  them  to  him  like 
an  honest  fellow,  when  to  my  certain  knowledge  some 
in  the  place  could  say  as  much  against  him  behind  his 
back,  but  darnt  open  their  mouths  in  any  shape  to  his 
face.  Perhaps  you  have  not  heard  the  reasons  I  had 
to  object  to  his  coming  which  if  you  have  not  I  will 
let  you  know  them."  They  are  practically  identical 
with  the  list  of  shortcomings  and  disqualifications 
which  the  Williams  faction  had  already  sent  to  the 
authorities  at  Boston  —  Mr.  Edwards  is  unsociable, 
too  old  to  learn  the  Mohawk  language,  astray  in  his 
theology  and  "a  very  great  Bigot."  "The  above  rea- 
sons," said  the  writer  in  conclusion,  "I  sent  to  him 
by  Lt.  Brown,  who  has  since  told  me  that  he  deliverd 

1  Origins  in  Williamstown,  639.  One  afternoon  in  the  summer  of  1896 
and  before  the  publication  of  the  second  edition  of  his  Origins,  Profes- 
sor Perry  invited  John  Bascom  and  the  present  writer  to  his  study  and 
read  to  them  this  appendix,  as  his  "  final  word  in  the  Edwards- Williams 
controversy." 

27 


WILLIAMS  COLLEGE 

to  him  verbatim,  which  I  believe  did  not  suit  him/' 
This  letter,  straightforward  and  downright,  takes  a 
disagreeable  coloring  from  the  unfortunate  contro- 
versy at  Stockbridge. 

West  Township  showed  little  immediate  interest 
in  the  will  of  the  founder.  Two  months  before  the 
change  of  name  the  proprietors  called  a  meeting  of 
the  citizens  to  determine  among  other  things  whether 
they  "will  Chuse  a  Committee  to  Geat  a  Coppy  of 
Colonel  Ephraim  Williams  Jnr.  Will  out  of  Probate 
Office  in  the  County  of  Hampshire."  1  The  committee 
decided  that  a  " Coppy"  should  be  obtained  and 
"Chose  Benjamin  Simons  to  Geat  it,"  for  which  serv- 
ice he  received  £0-3-4.  Among  the  articles  in  the 
warrant  calling  a  public  meeting  June  15  was  one 
—  "To  Chuse  a  Committee  on  the  Affairs  of  Colonel 
Williams  Willing  Land  or  money  to  ward  a  free 
School  in  West  Hoosuck  and  Said  Committee  to 
Prosecute  the  Same."  The  Proprietors,  when  the  sub- 
ject was  reached  at  the  meeting,  "Voted  to  dismiss 
this  article."  Somebody  seems  to  have  been  dissatis- 
fied with  the  curt,  half-contemptuous  treatment  which 
the  article  received  and  it  reappeared  in  the  next 
warrant  dated  October  8:  "To  see  if  the  Proprietors 
will  chuse  a  Committee  to  make  application  to  the 
Executors  of  Colonel  Ephraim  Williams,  Jnr.,  to 
See  Whearse  we  may  have  the  Benefit  of  the  Donation 
made  this  town  by  him."  The  Proprietors  did  not 
change  their  minds  in  the  intervening  three  months 
and  on  the  22d  of  October  again  "Voted  this  article 
Dismissed." 2  But  in  1770  the  wind  blew  from  another 

1  Proprietors'  Book.  2  Ibid. 

28 


WEST  TOWNSHIP  AND  THE  FREE  SCHOOL 

quarter,  and  the  Free  School  then  appeared  to  them 
as  an  institution  so  much  to  be  desired  that  they 
haled  the  executors  before  the  Legislature,  charging 
them  with  neglect  of  duty  because  they  had  done 
nothing  to  enable  Williamstown  to  "reap  the  intended 
benefit  of  so  noble  and  worthy  donation."  l  There 
was  a  note  of  unmistakable  anxiety  in  their  appeal. 
"The  inhabitants  not  knowing  where  to  apply  for 
relief, "  they  observed  in  concluding  it,  "by  their 
agents  Do  humbly  represent  their  Case  to  this  honble 
Court  and  pray  they  would  Grant  them  .  .  .  aid 
and  direction."  2  The  Legislature  was  in  a  friendly 
mood  and  promptly  ordered  the  executors  to  appear 
before  it  on  the  second  Wednesday  of  the  next  session 
and  "show  cause,"  if  they  could,  why  the  petition  of 
the  worried  and  aggrieved  inhabitants  should  not  be 
granted. 

The  executors  had  little  occasion  to  be  unhappy 
over  the  issue  of  the  controversy.  In  reply  to  the 
charges  they  began  by  calling  attention  to  the  over- 
looked fact  that  the  petitioners  "have  no  more  In- 
terest or  Concern  in  the  Devise  or  Donation  referred 
to  than  any  other  Members  of  the  State.  They  might 
indeed  from  their  Local  Circumstances  very  probably 
receive  more  Benefit  from  Such  School  than  others 
.  .  .  but  as  it  was  expressly  ordered  to  be  a  free  School 
no  Inhabitant  of  Williams  Town  could  have  any  right 
to  enjoy  the  privilege  of  it  to  the  exclusion  of  any 
other  english  Subject  whatever.  The  petitioners 
therefore  have  no  private  reason  to  complain." 

1  Israel  Williams,  Letters  and  Papers,  n,  177. 

2  Court  Records,  October  9,  1770. 

29 


WILLIAMS  COLLEGE 

After  this  preliminary  observation  the  executors 
passed  to  the  consideration  of  the  principal,  and  in 
their  judgment  decisive,  reason  for  the  delay.  "The 
testator,"  they  continued,  "designed  to  set  up  a 
School  free  for  all  the  King's  Subjects  equally  with- 
out exception,  but  he  designed  his  money  should  be 
expended  within  the  province.  When  he  made  his 
.  .  .  Will,  he  then  well  knew  that  the  place  where  (on 
certain  Conditions)  he  ordered  his  School  to  be  set 
up  was  within  the  jurisdiction  of  this  province,  as  it 
is  now,  but  he  well  knew  that  New  York  claimed  the 
Jurisdiction  of  it,  that  the  Governor  .  .  .  had  long 
before  made  Patents  of  these  Lands  &  that  this  prov- 
ince and  New  York  were  then  in  Dispute  about  the 
Jurisdiction.  And  the  Testator  had  fearful  apprehen- 
sions then  as  his  Executors  have  now  that  through  the 
Remissness  of  this  Province  &  Vigilance  of  that,  these 
Lands  would  finally  fall  within  the  Jurisdiction  of 
New  York.  ...  He  determined  not  to  have  the  money 
expended  there  till  the  dispute  was  finally  settled." 
Further,  they  took  occasion  to  say,  and  the  obvious 
threat  must  have  awakened  apprehension  at  Williams- 
town,  that  they  were  "not  satisfied  how  long  they 
ought  to  wait  .  .  .  before  they  proceed  to  the  other 
Method  of  Disposition  &  whether,  having  waited  till 
this  time  &  fifteen  years  have  elapsed  since  the  death 
of  the  Testator  and  the  State  of  these  Lands  remain- 
ing just  the  Same  in  regard  to  Jurisdiction  .  .  .  they 
ought  not  to  apply  the  Monies  to  the  other  Purposes 
Directed."  * 

The  Legislature  declined  to  interfere  and  the  peti- 
1  Mass.  Archives,  LVIII,  586. 
30 


WEST  TOWNSHIP  AND  THE  FREE  SCHOOL 

tioners  failed  to  get  "the  aid  and  direction*'  which 
they  sought. 

The  inaction  of  the  executors  continued  until  "the 
anno  domini  of  1784,"  when  they  sent  a  communica- 
tion to  the  Legislature  announcing  that  they  were 
ready  to  make  a  final  report.  In  this  communication 
they  reviewed  briefly  the  history  of  their  administra- 
tion of  the  trust,  repeating  substantially  what  they 
had  said  in  answer  to  the  Williamstown  petitioners  of 
1770.  They  also  discussed  another  interesting  sub- 
ject and  were  the  only  contemporaries  of  Ephraim 
Williams  who  had  anything  to  say  upon  it.  "By 
reason  of  the  Embarrassed  Situation,"  they  observed, 
"in  which  the  Testator  was  at  the  Time  of  Making 
his  last  Will  and  Testament  between  having  a  Regi- 
ment under  his  Command  and  marching  on  a  military 
Expedition  the  said  Testator  did  not  make  Such  Pro- 
vision and  Direction  as  were  absolutely  necessary  in 
order  to  effectuate  his  Charitable  Intention  and  such 
as  by  Advice  and  Assistance  of  Council  he  might  and 
doubtless  would  have  made,  had  he  not,  in  the  Hurry 
of  a  Military  March,  been  deprived  of  Counsel,  Op- 
portunity and  Leisure."  1  The  executors  now  asked 
the  Legislature  to  pass  an  act  declaring  their  duty  in 
reference  to  the  Free  School  and  creating  a  corpora- 
tion of  "Meet  Persons"  to  carry  into  effect  "the 
pious  and  Charitable  Intention  of  the  Testator." 
The  Legislature  decided  that  the  bequest  "ought  to 
be  presently  applied  and  appropriated"  and  on  the 
8th  of  March,  1785,  incorporated  "The  Trustees  of 

1  Petition   accompanying  Chap.  49,  Acts  and  Resolves  of  Mass., 
1784-85- 

31 


WILLIAMS  COLLEGE 

the  donation  of  Ephraim  Williams,  Esq.,  for  maintain- 
ing a  Free  School  in  Williamstown."  l 

The  "Meet  Persons,"  —  nine  in  number  and  all 
of  Berkshire  County,  —  "elected  and  appointed" 
as  trustees,  were  the  Rev.  Seth  Swift  (Yale  1774), tne 
"  much  esteemed,  dearly  beloved  and  very  faithful  and 
laborious  pastor"  2  of  the  church  at  Williamstown; 
the  Rev.  Daniel  Collins  (Yale  1760),  pastor  of  the 
church  in  Lanesboro  nearly  fifty-nine  years,  moderate 
loyalist  who  wore  "the  clerical  wig  and  three-cor- 
nered hat  to  the  end  of  his  days  " ;  Daniel  Noble  (Yale 
1764),  of  Williamstown,  able  lawyer  and  man  of  af- 
fairs, judge  of  the  Court  of  Common  Pleas  for  six 
years;  Israel  Jones,  of  North  Adams,  member  of  the 
Massachusetts  Legislature,  owner  of  the  land  on 
which  Fort  Massachusetts  stood,  member  of  the  com- 
mission appointed  by  President  John  Adams  to  es- 
tablish the  northeast  boundary  between  Canada  and 
the  United  States;  Woodbridge  Little  (Yale  1760), 
clergyman,  lawyer,  Tory,  who  in  1777  publicly  took 
an  oath  of  allegiance  to  the  United  States,  Represen- 
tative in  the  General  Court,  and  first  individual  con- 
tributor to  the  funds  of  the  college;  John  Bacon 
(Princeton  1765),  pastor  of  the  Old  South  Church  in 
Boston,  1771-75,  farmer  in  Stockbridge,  judge  of  the 
Court  of  Common  Pleas,  State  Senator,  Member  of 
Congress,  a  man  of  intellectual  force  and  independ- 
ence; Thompson  J.  Skinner,  of  Williamstown,  car- 
penter and  builder,  captain  of  a  local  military  com- 

1  Chap.  49,  Acts  and  Resolves  of  Mass.,  1784-85. 

2  Records  of  the  Church,  quoted  in  Field's  History  of  the  County  of 
Berkshire,  410. 

32 


WEST  TOWNSHIP  AND  THE  FREE  SCHOOL 

pany,  major-general  of  militia,  member  of  both 
branches  of  the  State  Legislature  and  of  the  Na- 
tional House  of  Representatives,  judge  of  the  Court 
of  Common  Pleas,  treasurer  of  Massachusetts,  1806- 
08;  William  Williams  (Yale  1754)  of  Dalton,  cousin 
of  the  founder,  moderate  loyalist,  State  Senator, 
clerk  of  the  court  of  Hampshire  County  for  twenty 
years;  Theodore  Sedgwick  (Yale  176s),1  of  Stock- 
bridge,  jurist  and  statesman,  justice  of  the  Supreme 
Court  of  Massachusetts,  Member  of  the  Continental 
Congress,  of  the  Federal  House  of  Representatives, 
and  of  the  Federal  Senate. 

At  their  first  meeting  held  in  Pittsfield,  April  24, 
the  new  board  elected  William  Williams  chairman  and 
the  Rev.  Seth  Swift  secretary,  appointed  a  commit- 
tee to  "circulate  subscriptions/'  voted  that  no  pupils 
should  be  admitted  to  the  school  who  had  not  "been 
previously  taught  to  read  English  well,"  and  adopted 
a  resolution  to  the  effect  that  the  purpose  of  the 
founder  would  be  most  fully  realized  by  devoting  his 
whole  gift  to  the  enterprise  in  Williamstown.  The  will 
provided  that  if  any  surplus  remained  after  establish- 
ing the  Free  School,  it  should  be  appropriated  to  "  the 
East  Township  where  the  fort  now  stands."  Writing 
Israel  Williams,  May  3,  the  chairman  said  with  excel- 
lent sense  that  "parcelling  out  the  money  between 
the  two  towns  would  render  both  schools  mean  and 
indifferent."  2  The  funds  turned  over  to  the  Williams- 

1  Ju$ge  Sedgwick  did  not  finish  his  course,  but  was  restored  to  his 
class  and  enrolled  with  it  in  1772.   (Dexter,  Yale  Biographies  1763-78, 

147.) 

2  Israel  Williams,  Letters  and  Papers,  n,  183. 

33 


WILLIAMS  COLLEGE 

town  trustees  by  the  executors  of  the  founder  July  7, 
1785,  amounted  to  only  £3383-3-7,  or  $n,277.1  A 
local  subscription  of  $903.58  made  the  available  re- 
sources $12,785.58. 

No  further  efforts  to  increase  the  endowment  seem 
to  have  been  made  until  their  meeting  August  19, 1788, 
when  the  trustees  voted  to  petition  the  General  Court 
for  the  grant  of  a  lottery  to  raise  a  sum  not  exceeding 
twelve  hundred  pounds.  "  By  the  local  situation  .  .  . 
our  youth,"  the  trustees  urged,  "are,  in  a  great  meas- 
ure, excluded  from  the  advantages  which  are  en- 
joyed by  their  fellow  youths,  whose  happy  lot  is  cast 
in  the  interior  parts  of  the  state  and  near  those  seats 
of  literature  which  adorn  and  bless  our  world."  2 
February  II,  1789,  the  Legislature  voted  to  grant 
the  petition  and  the  trustees  appointed  three  of  their 
number  —  Messrs.  Sedgwick,  Skinner  and  Little  — 
a  committee  to  manage  the  enterprise,  which  was 
shortly  announced  in  the  advertising  columns  of  the 
newspaper  press: 3  — 

NOTHING  VENTURE  NOTHING  HAVE 
NOT  TWO  BLANKS  TO  A  PRIZE 

SCHEME  OF 

WILLIAMSTOWN  FREE  SCHOOL 
LOTTERY4 

Occasional  variations  appear  in  the  head-lines  — 
"A  Grand  Chance"  5  and  the  more  urgent  "Now  or 

1  A  List  of  the  Debts  due  to  the  Executors,  Mass.  His.  Society,  8i-G-8i. 

2  Berkshire  Chronicle,  November  30,  1789. 

3  Yale  had  resorted  to  a  lottery  for  raising  funds  in  1747,  Columbia 
in  1754,  and  Harvard  in  1722. 

4  Western  Star,  January  19,  1790. 

5  Massachusetts  Sentinel,  November  14,  1789. 

34 


WEST  TOWNSHIP  AND  THE  FREE  SCHOOL 

Never"  *  taking  the  place  of  the  usual  "Nothing 
Venture,  Nothing  Have."  Thirty-four  hundred  tick- 
ets were  offered  at  two  dollars  each.  As  the  prizes 
amounted  to  fifty-eight  hundred  dollars,  the  margin 
of  profit  could  not  in  any  event  have  been  very  large. 
Altogether  eight  "  classes  "  were  drawn,  three  of  them 
-the  third,  fourth,  and  fifth — in  Boston.  This  tem- 
porary change  of  place  was  made,  the  managers  said, 
11  in  order  to  gratify  those  in  or  near  Boston  who  have 
discovered  a  disposition  to  encourage  a  lottery  .  .  . 
for  the  sole  purpose  of  promoting  education."  2  in 
a  neglected  part  of  the  Commonwealth.  The  advent 
of  the  Williamstown  enterprise  in  Boston  raised  an 
instant  commotion.  It  made  a  Charlestown  com- 
mittee, who  were  supervising  a  local  lottery,  then  in 
operation,  very  nervous.  In  fact  they  were  so  much 
disturbed  that  they  published  a  belligerent  "  Address 
to  the  Public"  in  order  to  discredit  the  unexpected 
and  irritating  competitor.  After  eight "  classes  "  of  the 
Charlestown  lottery  had  been  drawn,  the  angry  com- 
mittee explained,  they  decided  to  reduce  the  commis- 
sion of  agents.  "One  of  them  not  only  declined  sell- 
ing tickets  but  informed  us  ...  that  he  intended  to 
use  his  influence"  to  bring  the  Williamstown  lottery 
to  town.  When  the  threat  of  the  disgruntled  agent 
became  a  reality  and  this  lottery  from  the  western 
frontier  of  the  State  announced  a  drawing  four  days 
earlier  than  one  advertised  by  the  Charlestown  com- 
mittee, the  latter,  much  perturbed,  summoned  a  town 
meeting  to  advise  them  in  the  emergency.  The  town 

1  Western  Star,  February  16,  1790. 
*  Boston  Gazette,  February  i,  1790. 

35 


WILLIAMS  COLLEGE 

meeting  ordered  them  to  change  the  date  of  the  draw- 
ings as  often  as  they  "thought  prudent,  but  at  all 
events  to  precede  the  other  lottery."  l  The  Williams- 
town  managers  promptly  issued  a  counter-address 
"To  the  Impartial  Public,"  declaring  that  they  came 
to  Boston  "at  the  solicitation  of  several  respectable 
characters.  .  .  .  They  are  extremely  sorry  to  find  that, 
while  pursuing  the  line  of  their  duty,  they  should 
be  obstructed  by  others  whose  interest  cannot  be 
served  by  it.  They  would  observe  that  as  they  have 
undertaken  this  business  they  will  pursue  it  with 
firmness  and  integrity."  2  They  did  pursue  it  two 
months  or  more  and  then  printed  a  card  in  the  news- 
papers to  the  effect  that  the  condition  of  their  private 
affairs,  which  had  suffered  during  this  interval,  neces- 
sitated their  return  to  Williamstown.  Probably  the 
fact  that  the  town  of  Boston  bought  relatively  few 
tickets  —  a  fact  not  mentioned  in  the  card  —  was 
the  real  cause  of  their  abandoning  the  campaign  in 
Eastern  Massachusetts. 

Then  in  addition  to  other  difficulties  the  managers 
were  embarrassed  by  the  primitive  currency  to  which 
they  reverted  in  their  transactions.  "A  very  great 
failure,"  they  announced  December  21,  1789,  "in  the 
sale  of  tickets  in  the  second  class  of  the  Williams- 
town  Free  School  Lottery  has  obliged  the  managers  to 
postpone  the  drawing  to  the  twelfth  day  of  January 
next.  .  .  .  The  extreme  scarcity  of  cash  has  also  in- 
duced them  to  determine  upon  making  sale  of  the  re- 
maining tickets  on  contracts  for  neat  cattle.  .  .  .  The 

1  Massachusetts  Sentinel,  February  18,  1790. 

2  Independent  Chronicle,  February  n,  1790. 

36 


WEST  TOWNSHIP  AND  THE  FREE  SCHOOL 

managers  had  no  view,  when  they  published  their 
scheme,  ...  of  proposing  to  the  public  the  purchase 
of  their  tickets  with  anything  but  money."  *  This 
financial  makeshift  gave  all  concerned  an  infinite 
deal  of  trouble.  It  complicated  and  embarrassed  the 
whole  transaction,  since  managers  and  adventurers 
had  difficulty  in  agreeing  upon  the  cash  value  of  live- 
stock payments.  Some  of  the  settlements  dragged  on 
several  years  and  provoked  an  uncomfortable  amount 
of  dissatisfaction.  But  however  various  the  sorts  of 
currency  which  must  be  reckoned  with,  —  consoli- 
dated notes,  new  emission,  old  Continental  money, 
wheat  or  neat  cattle,2  —  the  lottery  prospered  fairly 
well  and  contributed  $3449.09  to  the  treasury  of  the 
Free  School. 

At  this  second  meeting,  held  August  3,  1785,  the 
trustees  began  a  discussion  concerning  the  site,  di- 
mensions, and  architecture  of  "the  house  for  the  use 
of  the  Free  School,"  which  continued  intermittently 
and  indecisively  until  May  25,  1790,  when  the  suc- 
cess of  the  lottery  had  been  assured.  They  then 
voted  that  it  should  be  built  on  the  second  eminence 
as  one  enters  the  town  from  the  east  and  in  the 
middle  of  the  broad  main  street.  During  the  following 
year  this  "house "  -  a  building  eighty-four  feet  long, 
forty- two  feet  wide,  four  stories  high,  and  with  an  east 
and  west  archway  through  the  centre  —  was  sub- 
stantially completed.  To  the  committee  of  trustees 
in  charge  of  the  enterprise  —  Messrs.  Skinner,  Jones, 
and  Noble  —  the  board  added  an  outsider  —  Colonel 
Benjamin  Simonds,  not  only  a  prominent  citizen  of 

1  Berkshire  Chronicle,  December  28,  1789.  2  Ibid. 

37 


WILLIAMS  COLLEGE 

the  town,  but  a  soldier  at  Fort  Massachusetts  and  a 
friend  of  Colonel  Williams.1  The  committee  entered 
upon  their  task  at  once  and  pushed  the  work  with 
vigor.  Only  one  contemporary  notice  of  their  opera- 
tions appears  to  have  survived  and  that  is  brief  and 
incidental.  Monday  forenoon,  August  30,  1790,  Wil- 
liam Smith,  Member  of  Congress  from  South  Carolina 
and  afterwards  Minister  to  Portugal,  who  was  mak- 
ing a  brief  tour  in  Southern  New  England,  rode  over 
Stone  Hill  and  his  attention  was  attracted  by  what 
might  seem,  for  so  small  and  remote  a  town,  rather 
unusual  building  operations. 

"  Fifteen  miles  from  Lebanon,"  wrote  the  Con- 
gressman, "we  breakfasted  at  Sloan's  Tavern  at 
Williamstown  in  Massachusetts.  The  principal  part 
of  the  town  is  about  four  miles  further  on  where  they 
are  building  a  handsome  brick  college;  ...  a  dona- 
tion from  Mr.  Williams  .  .  .  applied  by  his  executors 
to  the  erection  of  this  college,  which  will  be  in  a  fine, 
healthy  country."  2 

The  house  for  the  Free  School  —  plain,  unpreten- 
tious, yet  having  a  certain  quiet  dignity  withal  — 
has  been  known  for  more  than  a  hundred  years  as 
West  College.  Originally  it  had  a  wide  range  of  uses, 
since  it  contained  not  only  dormitories,  but  a  kitchen, 
dining-room,  library,  and  chapel.  Gradually  these  va- 
riorum features  were  eliminated  until  finally  noth- 
ing but  dormitories  remained.  There  have  been  two 
reconstructions  and  modernizations  of  the  building, 
one  of  them  occurring  in  1854  and  the  other  in  1894. 

1  Perry,  Williamstown  and  Williams  College,  190,  191. 

2  New  York  Evening  Post,  May  I,  1888. 

38 


WEST   COLLEGE,  FROM   A  DAGUERREOTYPE  TAKEN  FOR  THE 
CLASS  OF    1848 


WEST   COLLEGE  AS   IT  IS  IN   1917 


WEST  TOWNSHIP  AND  THE  FREE  SCHOOL 

October  26,  nearly  two  months  after  the  visit  of 
William  Smith,  the  trustees  appointed  three  of  their 
number  —  William  Williams,  John  Bacon,  and  Seth 
Swift  —  a  committee  "to  provide  a  schoolmaster  .  .  . 
suitably  qualified"  to  teach  reading,  writing,  and 
arithmetic.  They  were  also  directed  "to  employ,  as 
soon  as  may  be  after  the  building  is  completed,  an 
instructor"  who  should  teach  the  more  advanced 
pupils  and  have  charge  of  the  whole  enterprise.  In 
regard  to  the  qualifications  of  the  instructor  they 
were  quite  specific  —  he  must  have  a  good  moral 
character  of  the  Protestant  type,  all-round  scholar- 
ship, skill  in  teaching  and  managing  schoolboys,  pol- 
ished manners,  and  "a  mild  disposition."  One  is  a 
little  surprised  that  the  last  trait  should  have  been 
included  in  the  catalogue  of  requirements.  A  distin- 
guished contemporary  of  the  trustees,  however,  seems 
to  agree  with  them  about  its  pedagogic  value.  "  Good 
temper,"  wrote  James  Boswell,  "is  a  most  essential 
requisite  in  a  preceptor."  1 

The  schoolmaster  could  be  easily  found,  but  a  com- 
petent instructor  was  another  matter.  The  committee 
naturally  repaired  to  New  Haven  and  consulted  Presi- 
dent Stiles,  who  said  that  Ebenezer  Fitch,  senior  tutor 
in  the  college,  was  the  man  for  them  —  a  conclusion 
in  which  they,  and  subsequently  all  their  associates, 
concurred.  He  was  formally  elected  to  office,  with 
"the  style  of  Preceptor,"  October  n,  1791. 

Ebenezer  Fitch,  a  native  of  Norwich,  Connecticut, 
son  of  a  prominent  physician,  graduated  at  Yale  in 
1777  and  with  the  highest  honors.  Two  years  more  of 

1  Boswell,  Life  of  Samuel  Johnson,  Birrell's  Ed.,  1, 67. 
39 


WILLIAMS  COLLEGE 

study  followed  and  some  months  of  teaching  in  an 
academy  at  Hanover,  New  Jersey.  Then  he  returned 
to  New  Haven  and  references  to  him  begin  to  appear 
in  the  " Diary "  of  President  Stiles.  "This  day,"  the 
latter  wrote  January  1, 1780, "  Mr.  Fitch,  Tutor- Elect, 
arrived  in  town.  I  examined  him  in  regard  to  his  re- 
ligious principles  and  found  him  sound."  1  His  schol- 
arship, which  the  President  seemed  to  take  for  granted, 
was  quite  as  "sound  "  as  his  theology.  He  held  office 
until  March,  1783,  when  he  resigned  in  order  to  visit 
Europe.  Intending  to  abandon  teaching  for  a  mer- 
cantile career,  and  forming  a  partnership  with  Henry 
Daggett,  Jr.,  of  New  Haven,  he  went  abroad  the  fol- 
lowing May  to  make  purchases  and  returned  with 
a  large  stock  of  unsalable  goods.  The  inevitable  result 
was  bankruptcy  and  the  burden  of  heavy,  obstinate 
debts.  Writing  a  friend  in  1797  —  eleven  or  twelve 
years  after  the  failure  —  he  said  that  these  debts  had 
then  shrunk  to  "a  little  more  than  six  hundred  dol- 
lars," 2  and  that  he  hoped  to  make  a  speedy  end  of 
them  —  an  expectation  which  was  not  realized.  On 
the  collapse  of  his  business  venture,  he  again  became 
a  member  of  the  Yale  faculty,  having  been  appointed 
"Senior  Tutor"  in  the  autumn  of  I786.3  This  posi- 
tion he  held  until  the  close  of  the  college  year  1790-91. 
The  preceptor  reached  Williamstown  October  8.  He 
found  much  still  remaining  to  be  done,  as  the  building 
had  not  been  finished  nor  had  laws  and  regulations 
for  the  school  been  drawn  up.  The  preliminary  work, 

1  Stiles,  Diary,  January  I,  1780. 

2  Durfee,  Sketch  of  the  Rev.  Ebenezer  Pitch,  D.D.,  36. 

3  Stiles,  Diary,  September  14,  1786. 

40 


WEST  TOWNSHIP  AND  THE  FREE  SCHOOL 

however,  was  soon  disposed  of  and  the  following  an- 
nouncement presently  appeared  in  local  newspapers : 

THE 

ACADEMY  AND  FREE  SCHOOL 
IN   WILLIAMSTOWN 

will  be  open  for  the  admission  of  young 

Gentlemen  and  Masters,  on  Monday  the 

24th  day  of  October  current.1 

When  the  new  institution,  with  Mr.  John  Lester  as 
assistant  master,  actually  began,  it  was  two  days  be- 
hind the  programme.  ''The  26th  Ult.,"  wrote  the  pre- 
ceptor November  3,  1791,  "the  Building  was  so  far 
in  readiness  that  I  entered  on  business;  and  with  the 
Master  of  the  English  Free  School  admitted  ...  45 
scholars.  The  Students  in  the  Academy  pass  no  ex- 
aminations. .  .  .  The  number  of  these  is  as  yet  under 
twenty,  but  it  will  probably  be  forty  in  a  few  weeks/'  * 

1  Western  Star,  October  25,  1791. 

*  Williams  Centennial  Anniversary,  263. 


CHAPTER  III 

THE  BEGINNINGS  OF  THE  COLLEGE 

EVIDENTLY  Preceptor  Fitch  and  the  trustees  looked 
upon  the  Free  School  as  a  provisional  and  temporary 
affair,  since  on  the  22d  of  May,  1792,  only  seven 
months  after  the  opening,  they  sent  a  petition  to  the 
Legislature  praying  that  it  "  may  be  incorporated  into 
a  college  by  the  name  of  Williams  Hall."  In  support 
of  this  petition  they  urged  various  considerations  — 
the  quick  and  large  success  of  the  present  venture;  the 
small  cost  of  living  which  would  bring  a  liberal  edu- 
cation "  within  the  power  of  the  middling  and  lower 
classes ";  the  fortunate  situation  of  Williamstown  — 
"an  enclosed  place"  free  from  "the  temptations  and 
allurements  .  .  .  incident  to  seaport  towns,"  and  the 
obvious  advantages  that  would  accrue  to  the  neigh- 
boring States  of  Vermont  and  New  York. 

This  petition  of  May  22,  1792,  was  not  the  first  of 
the  sort  from  Western  Massachusetts.  Thirty  years 
earlier  a  movement  got  under  way  there  to  establish 
Queen's  College  at  Hatfield,  and  the  promoters  of  the 
enterprise  made  a  plausible  appeal  in  behalf  of  it. 
Now,  at  last,  after  a  century  of  border  war,  they 
urged,  a  time  of  peace  had  come,  —  a  time  "longed, 
wished,  and  prayed  for,"  but  never  seen  before, — 
and,  in  order  to  save  their  children  from  growing  up 
"barbarous  and  uncivilized,"  they  were  seizing  upon 

42 


THE  BEGINNINGS  OF  THE  COLLEGE 

this  favorable  opportunity  to  establish  a  seminary  of 
learning  in  Hampshire  County.1 

January  29,  1762,  the  memorial  reached  the  Legis- 
lature, and  the  House  of  Representatives,  though  by 
a  narrow  majority,  voted  to  grant  it.  In  the  Council, 
however,  after  a  long  debate,  it  was  defeated.  The 
promoters  then  appealed  to  Governor  Bernard,  and 
persuaded  him  to  issue  a  charter  in  the  King's  name 
dated  "at  Boston  the  27th  day  of  Feb'y  In  the  Sec- 
ond year  of  Our  Reign,  Anno  Domini  1762."  After 
some  preliminary  statements  the  document  proceeds : 
"We  have  accordingly,  of  Our  Meer  Motion,  Certain 
Knowledge  &  Special  grace  given  &  granted  &  by  these 
presents  We  do  give  and  grant  unto  .  .  .  Israel  Wil- 
liams, John  Worthington,  Oliver  Partridge,  Elijah 
Williams,  Josiah  Dwight,  Joseph  Hawley,  Stephen 
Williams,  David  Parsons,  Jonathan  Ashley,  Timothy 
Woodbridge,  Samuel  Hopkins  &  John  Hooker  and 
such  others  as  shall  be  joined  with  them,  in  manner 
hereafter  mentioned,  that  they  be  &  We  hereby  make 
&  incorporate  them  as  a  Corporation  or  Body  Politic 
by  the  name  of  the  President  &  Fellows  of  Queen's 
College  in  New  England."  2  Two  of  these  twelve 
trustees,  it  will  be  observed,  were  Ephraim  Williams' 
executors,  and  among  the  other  ten  we  find  a  son-in- 
law,  a  brother-in-law,  two  cousins,  and  two  towns- 
men of  Israel  Williams. 

The  action  of  Governor  Bernard  awakened  alarm 
and  protest  at  Harvard.  It  was  feared  that  the  found- 
ing of  another  college  in  Massachusetts  would  prove 
disastrous  to  the  older  institution.  The  Board  of 

1  Israel  Williams,  Letters  and  Papers,  n,  178.  *  Ibid.,  177. 

43 


WILLIAMS  COLLEGE 

Overseers  held  a  special  meeting  to  determine  what 
should  be  done  to  avert  the  impending  calamity.  This 
meeting  the  Governor  attended  and  brought  with 
him  the  charter,  but  the  conference  seems  to  have 
been  futile,  since  the  Overseers  subsequently  issued  a 
formal  Remonstrance  in  which  they  discussed  the 
subject  under  twenty-four  heads.  All  these  numerous 
heads  were  variations  upon  a  single  theme  —  the  pro- 
posed "seminary"  in  Hampshire  County  will  hurt 
Harvard,  and  tend  to  "  make  learning  contemptible."1 

Then  the  oratorical  "clamor"  of  young  James  Otis 
converted  the  House  of  Representatives  from  a  friendly 
to  a  hostile  assembly.2  Even  the  ministers  of  Boston 
joined  in  the  senseless  hue  and  cry,  and  the  opposi- 
tion finally  reached  such  a  pitch  that  Governor  Ber- 
nard was  "  terrorized"  and  revoked  its  charter.3 

The  memorial  of  the  trustees  of  the  Free  School  was 
presented  to  the  Legislature  in  June,  1792,  —  the 
Senate  appointing  members  of  a  committee  to  con- 
sider it  on  the  i8th  and  the  House  of  Representatives 
on  the  i Qth  of  that  month.  For  some  reason,  not  very 
clear  at  the  present  day,  the  charter  hung  fire  until 
June  22,  1793,  —  a  year  after  the  appearance  of  the 
memorial  at  the  State  House.  If  the  opposition  that 
killed  Queen's  College  in  1763  again  took  the  field  in 
1792  and  fought  this  second  attempt  to  establish  a 
college  in  Western  Massachusetts,  it  won  the  barren 
victory  of  a  twelvemonth's  hold-up. 

The  new  institution,  "to  be  known  and  called  by 

1  Quincy,  History  of  Harvard  College,  n,  105-11,  464. 
*  Israel  Williams,  Letters  and  Papers,  II,  180. 
1  Journal,  H.R.,  April  17,  1762. 

44 


THE  BEGINNINGS  OF  THE  COLLEGE 

the  name  of  Williams  College, "  established  for  the 
very  general  "purpose of  educating  youth,"  and  with 
no  theological  conditions,  took  over  everything  that 
belonged  to  the  Free  School  —  trustees,  plant,  funds, 
and  preceptor  —  now  styled  President  —  everything 
except  the  tutor,  John  Lester,  who  was  succeeded  by 
Noah  Linsly  (Yale  1791).  Four  new  members,  in- 
creasing the  number  to  thirteen,  were  added  to  the 
Board  of  Trustees  —  the  President  of  the  College; 
Henry  Van  Schaak,  of  Pittsfield,  a  wealthy  business 
man,  who,  to  the  disappointment  of  the  corporation, 
failed  to  remember  the  institution  in  his  will;  Elijah 
Williams,  of  Stockbridge,  half-brother  of  the  founder; 
and  the  Rev.  Dr.  Stephen  West,  his  brother-in-law. 
The  charter  provided  that  the  membership  of  the 
Board  should  never  be  less  than  eleven  nor  more  than 
seventeen,1  and  in  1794  it  was  raised  to  sixteen  by  the 
election  of  the  Hon.  Stephen  Van  Rensselaer,  of  Al- 
bany, New  York,  founder  of  the  Polytechnic  Insti- 
tute at  Troy;  the  Rev.  Dr.  Job  Swift,  of  Bennington, 
Vermont,  in  whose  household  Zephaniah  Swift  Moore, 
second  president  of  Williams,  lived  for  a  time ;  and  the 
Rev.  Ammi  Ruhamah  Robbins,  of  Norfolk,  Connecti- 
cut, pastor  of  the  church  in  that  town  upwards  of  half 
a  century,  chaplain  in  the  Revolutionary  army,  suc- 
cessful teacher  of  boys  preparing  for  college.  The  cor- 
poration was  authorized  to  hold  property  yielding  an 
annual  income  not  to  exceed  six  thousand  pounds; 
to  establish  reasonable  rules,  orders,  and  by-laws  for 
the  government  of  the  institution,  and  to  confer  aca- 
demic degrees. 

1  Vermont  Gazette,  August  16,  1793. 
45 


WILLIAMS  COLLEGE 

Six  or  seven  weeks  after  the  charter  had  been  se- 
cured, the  corporation  published  a  prospectus  of  the 
college  in  local  newspapers.1  The  terms  of  admission, 
mostly  imported  from  New  Haven,  were  not  difficult 
judged  by  modern  standards,  as  they  included  noth- 
ing more  than  a  passable  acquaintance  with  arith- 
metic and  grammar,  with  Cicero's  Orations,  Virgil's 
^Eneid,  and  the  Evangelists  in  Greek  or  an  approved 
French  author.  The  option  which  allowed  the  sub- 
stitution of  French  for  Greek  was  an  unexpected  and 
not  wholly  explicable  innovation.  President  Fitch  in 
his  sketch  of  the  college,  written  for  the  Massachusetts 
Historical  Society,  remarks  that  students  from  Can- 
ada attended  the  Free  School  when  it  opened  in  1791. 
The  innovation,  which  flew  in  the  face  of  academic 
tradition,  may  have  been  a  bid  for  patronage  from 
that  quarter. 

Students  had  an  easy  entrance  into  the  college, 
but  when  admitted,  they  found  themselves  in  a  much- 
regulated  little  world  where  fines  were  a  favorite 
medium  of  discipline.  The  list  of  things  they  were 
forbidden  to  do  is  long  and  curious,  and  the  penalties, 
if  they  were  done,  ranged  from  one  penny  to  ten  shil- 
lings.2 For  other  and  graver  offences,  which  fines  did 
not  seem  to  punish  adequately,  the  authorities  had  in 
reserve  such  penalties  as  public  confession,  suspen- 
sion, rustication,  and  expulsion.3 

1  Appendix  III.  *  Appendix  IV. 

8  The  Laws  of  Williams  College,  Stockbridge,  1795.  President  Fitch 
followed  New  Haven  presidents  and  adapted  to  his  uses  the  Laws  of 
Yale  College,  1787.  During  the  eighteenth  century  fines  played  a  promi- 
nent part  in  college  administration.  At  Harvard  "  pecuniary  mulcts," 
ranging  from  one  penny  to  two  pounds  and  ten  shillings,  were  the  pen- 


THE  BEGINNINGS  OF  THE  COLLEGE 

Compared  with  the  formidable  system  of  rules,  the 
curriculum  was  a  simple  affair.  A  faculty  of  two  mem- 
bers, instructing  a  handful  of  crude  undergraduates, 
would  quickly  find  anything  else  impracticable.  As 
the  entire  teaching  staff  and  seven  of  the  twelve  trus- 
tees were  graduates  of  Yale,  the  precedents  of  that 
institution  would  naturally  be  followed.  Freshman 
year  was  given  up  to  the  study  of  languages  —  Eng- 
lish, Latin,  Greek,  and  French.  In  Sophomore  year 
geography,  arithmetic,  rhetoric,  logic,  algebra,  and 
"the  mensuration  of  superficies  and  solids/'  partly 
replaced  linguistic  subjects.  Junior  year  was  devoted 
to  the  higher  mathematics,  natural  philosophy,  astron- 
omy, and  chemistry.  In  Senior  year,  when  the  weekly 
classroom  exercises  were  reduced  from  sixteen  to 
twelve  hours,  the  list  comprised  history,  ethics,  meta- 
physics, theology,  natural  law,  and  civil  polity. 

Wednesday,  October  9,  1793,  the  Free  School 
opened  its  doors  as  Williams  College  with  a  registra- 
tion of  eighteen  undergraduates  —  eleven  Freshmen, 
three  Sophomores,  and  four  Juniors.  The  transition, 
though  it  turned  out  to  be  a  matter  of  some  impor- 
tance, attracted  no  attention,  and  for  the  next  two 
years  the  new  institution  was  seldom  heard  of.  An 
official  notice  or  two,  the  announcement  that  Presi- 
dent Fitch,  on  June  24, 1794,  would  preach  "  a  sermon 

alty  for  fifty-two  offences.  The  greatest  of  these  sins,  measured  by  its 
cost,  was  "  tarrying  out  of  town  one  month  without  leave,"  and  the 
least,  "  tardiness  at  prayers."  (Quincy,  A  History  of  Harvard  University, 
II,  499.)  Opposition  to  the  system  of  fines  began  about  the  middle  of  the 
century.  (See  "  A  Letter  to  a  Member  of  the  Lower  House  of  Assembly, 
New  Haven,  1759.")  Fines  at  Yale  in  the  last  three  years  according  to 
the  anonymous  author  of  this  "Letter"  amounted  to  £172-16-1. 

47 


WILLIAMS  COLLEGE 

before  Friendship  Lodge  of  Free  and  Accepted  Ma- 
sons," 1  and  an  account  of  a  celebration  July  4,  1795, 
in  which  town  and  college  joined,2  are  all  one  can  find 
during  these  years  in  the  files  of  local  newspapers. 

As  a  sort  of  theological  prerequisite  to  the  decorous 
performance  of  his  duties  at  the  first  Commencement, 
President  Fitch  was  ordained  to  the  ministry.  The 
event  took  place  June  17,  and  the  Rev.  Ephraim  Jud- 
son,  pastor  of  the  Congregational  Church  at  Sheffield, 
delivered  the  sermon,  in  which  he  insisted  that  clergy- 
men must  "preach  the  word,"  whether  the  laity  like 
it  or  not.  He  had  no  doubt  about  the  fate  of  unfaith- 
ful pastors.  "They  go  from  the  pulpit,"  he  declared, 
"  to  the  tribunal  of  Christ  and  from  the  tribunal  down 
to  hell."  3 

Stockbridge  and  Bennington  newspapers,  the  only 
available  sources  of  information,  published  with  some 
detail  accounts  of  the  graduating  exercises  in  1795:  — 

Wittiamstown,  Sept.  8th,  1795. 

On  Wednesday  the  second  instant  was  celebrated  here 
the  first  Commencement  of  Williams  College.  About 
eleven  o'clock  the  procession  moved  from  the  college  in 
the  following  order:  — 

The  Scholars  of  the  Academy 

The  Students  of  the  College 

The  Sheriff  of  the  County  acting  as  Bedellus 

The  Reverend  President  and  Vice- President  and  other 

members  of  the  Corporation 

The  Tutors 
The  Reverend  Clergy  and  other  respectable  Gentlemen 

1  Western  Star,  June  10,  1794.         2  Vermont  Gazette,  July  10,  1795. 
3  Judson,  A  Sermon  delivered  in  Williamstown,  June  17,  1795,  at  the 
Ordination  of  Rev.  Ebenezer  Fitch,  President  of  Williams  College. 

'       48 


THE  BEGINNINGS  OF  THE  COLLEGE 

The  exercises  of  the  day  were  introduced  by  prayer  by 
the  President  and  an  anthem  sung  by  students  and  ladies 
and  gentlemen  of  the  town. 

Order  of  Exercises 

A  Salutatory  Oration  in  Latin,  by  Mr.  Lusk. 

An  English  Oration  on  the  French  Revolution,  by  Mr. 
Bishop. 

A  Forensic  Disputation,  by  Messrs.  Lusk  and  Stone, 
on  the  question,  "Can  the  differences  in  the  complexion 
and  features  of  the  human  race  be  accounted  for  by 
natural  causes?" 

An  English  Oration  on  the  Government  of  the  United 
States,  by  Mr.  Collins. 

A  Forensic  Disputation,  in  the  manner  of  Harvard,  by 
Messrs.  Bishop  and  Collins,  on  the  question,  "Is  a  Re- 
publican government  like  that  of  the  United  States  as 
well  calculated  as  monarchy  to  promote  the  security  and 
happiness  of  a  numerous  and  extensive  people?" 

An  English  Oration  on  female  education,  by  Mr. 
Stone. 

The  Exercises  of  the  afternoon  were  introduced  by 
Redemption,  an  Ode. 

A  French  Oration  on  the  oratory  of  the  ancients  and 
moderns,  showing  the  advantage  of  the  latter  over  the 
former,  and  the  importance  of  oratory  in  general  by  Mr. 
Collins. 

A  Dialogue  on  the  folly  and  impertinence  of  frivolous 
conversation,  by  Messrs.  Bishop,  Lusk,  and  Stone. 

An  English  Oration  on  the  iniquity  and  impolicy  of  the 
slave  trade,  by  Mr.  Lusk. 

A  Conference  on  the  comparative  importance  to  soci- 
ety of  three  institutions,  civil  government,  religion,  and 
marriage,  by  Messrs.  Bishop,  Collins,  and  Stone. 

A  short  but  truly  Shandean  Oration  by  Mr.  Daniel 
Dunbar,  Preceptor  of  the  Academy,  since  elected  tutor  of 
the  college. 

49 


WILLIAMS  COLLEGE 

The  President  pronounced  a  pathetic  and  excellent 
valedictory  Address  to  the  candidates  for  the  first  degree, 
in  which  he  made  many  excellent  moral  and  political 
observations  to  them  respecting  their  future  conduct  in 
life,  and  then  conferred  the  degree  of  batchelor  of  arts  on 
.  .  .  Samuel  Bishop,  John  Collins,  Chauncey  Lusk  and 
David  Stone.1 

The  graduates  at  this  first  Williams  Commence- 
ment had  a  strenuous  day,  since  each  of  them  spoke 
four  times.  In  1796,  when  there  was  a  Senior  class  of 
six,  nobody  made  more  than  three  appearances  on  the 
platform.  Two  years  later  there  were  twenty-eight 
young  gentlemen  to  be  heard  and  this  great  increase 
in  numbers  made  a  change  of  programme  necessary. 
Consequently  the  secretary  of  the  Trustees  an- 
nounced that  a  part  of  them  "  would  exhibit  their 
literary  productions  on  the  evening  preceding  Com- 
mencement." In  his  opinion  exercises  of  this  sort 
would  furnish  a  "more  rational  and  agreeable  enter- 
tainment than  the  idle  show  and  parade  usual  at 
colleges  on  such  occasions."  2 

Meanwhile  two  buildings  had  been  added  to  the 
campus  —  a  house  for  the  President  in  1794  and  the 
old  East  College  in  1798.  The  latter,  situated  on  the 
eastern  "eminence"  of  the  village,  was  of  brick,  four 
stories  high,  one  hundred  and  four  feet  long  and 
twenty-eight  wide.  In  addition  to  recitation  rooms 
for  Seniors  and  Juniors,  it  contained  thirty-two  dor- 
mitories. These  new  student  quarters,  with  their  car- 

1  Vermont  Gazette,  September  18,  1795.    Western  Star,  September, 
1795-   No  official  programmes  for  the  Commencements  of  1795,  1796, 
1798,  1 80 1,  1802,  seem  to  be  in  existence. 

2  Vermont  Gazette,  September  i,  1798. 

50 


THE  BEGINNINGS  OF  THE  COLLEGE 

petless  floors,  unpapered  walls,  and  scant,  rough  fur- 
niture, were  scarcely  more  attractive  than  the  older 
ones  in  West  College. 

How  the  campus,  in  this  first  decade  of  its  history, 
impressed  travellers  we  have  little  knowledge.  Few  of 
them  passed  that  way  and  the  record  of  their  journeys 
is  for  the  most  part  brief  and  casual.  Six  years  after 
the  trip  of  William  Smith,  the  South  Carolinian, 
from  Lebanon  Springs  to  Bennington,  Thomas  Chap- 
man undertook  a  horseback  "Tour  of  the  Eastern 
States*'  and  kept  a  diary:  — 

"  Tuesday,  I3th  of  June  [1796].  I  went  on  [from 
Pittsfield]  8  Miles  to  Halls  Tavern  in  Ashford  dined 
&  then  proceeded  4  Miles  to  Rossetters  Tavern  in 
[South]  Williamstown  where  I  slept. 

"Wednesday,  June  I4th.  Sett  of  in  Company  with 
a  Student  in  Williamstown  College,  and  rode  5  Miles 
to  the  thick  Settled  part  of  the  Town  where  the 
College  is  built.  I  understand  from  the  Young  Man 
that  his  Uncle,  Mr.  Williams,  at  his  Decease,  about 
4  Years  agoe,  bequeathed  large  Tracts  of  land  for 
Building  and  support  of  a  Free  Academy  in  this 
Town,  and  these  Tracts  .  .  .  being  Sold  by  the 
Trustees  for  a  large  Sum  of  Money,  the  Academy 
is  not  only  compleated  and  Indwed,  but  a  great  sur- 
plus remaining  the  Legislature  have  Incorporated  a 
College  and  granted  a  Lottery,  by  the  produce  of  wch 
the  Buildings  are  already  so  extensive  as  to  admit  100 
Students.  At  Present  the  Academy  &  College  are 
under  one  Roof,  but  they  are  now  at  Work  upon  an- 
other Brick  Building  100  foot  by  40  so  that  it  bids  fair 
to  be  an  extensive  Seminary  of  Learning.  There  is  a 


WILLIAMS  COLLEGE 

President  &  two  Tutors,  belonging  to  the  College,  but 
no  Professors  as  yet.  There  are  two  large  Taverns  in 
this  Town,  at  each  of  wch  several  of  the  Students 
board  &  pay  10  Shs  PR  week.  The  Town  lays  low  and 
is  surrounded  by  high  hills.  From  Williams  Town  I 
went  three  Miles  &  past  the  Line  into  the  State  of 
Vermont  and  breakfasted  at  Blins  Tavern,  2  Miles 
further  in  the  Town  of  Poonal."  l 

After  another  six  years  had  passed,  a  second  dia- 
rist —  the  Rev.  John  Taylor  of  Deerfield  —  visited 
the  Berkshires  on  his  way  to  "  the  Mohawk  and  Black 
River  country" :  — 

"  Williamstown  July  2Oth  1802:  Rode  from  Deer- 
field  to  this  town  40  miles.  Weather,  extremely  un- 
comfortable from  heat.  .  .  .  Proceeded  from  Cherla- 
ment,  on  the  turnpike,  over  Housic  mountain.  .  .  . 
Having  passed  down  the  mountain  I  came  into  the 
town  of  Adams.  ...  5  miles  from  Adams  is  Williams- 
town.  The  college  consists  of  about  90  scholars  —  a 
president  and  4  tutors.  There  are  two  elegant  build- 
ings —  standing  on  elevated  ground  about  40  rods 
from  each  other.  I  put  up  with  Dr.  Fitch  —  a  valu- 
able man  —  and  has  an  agreeable  family."  2 

Progress  in  equipment  was  quite  as  slow  as  in 
buildings.  The  Trustees  announced  in  the  prospectus 
for  1793-94  that  "a  decent  library  and  apparatus 
would  be  immediately  procured."  During  the  follow- 
ing year  the  library  was  probably  regarded  as  having 

1  Historical  Magazine,  Second  Series,  vn,  17.   The  young  man  who 
accompanied  Thomas  Chapman,  Esq.,  from  South  Williamstown  "  to 
the  thick  Settled  part  of  the  Town,"  told  him  a  good  many  things  that 
were  not  so. 

2  Documentary  History  of  the  State  of  New  York,  m,  673,  684,  685. 

52 


THE  BEGINNINGS  OF  THE  COLLEGE 

reached  that  stage,  since  they  then  published  a  cata- 
logue which  showed  that  it  contained  three  hundred 
and  sixty  volumes.1  In  the  prospectus  for  1798-99 
they  content  themselves  with  saying  that  it  had  been 
"very  well  chosen."  2  For  a  long  period  after  1793, 
when  it  consisted  of  a  telescope  with  a  wooden  tube 
constructed  by  Mr.  Tutor  Dunbar,3  and  what  else 
nobody  knows,  the  apparatus  seems  to  have  remained 
at  a  standstill.  Not  until  1814  does  any  reference  to  it 
appear  in  official  announcements,  and  then  the  au- 
thorities ventured  to  say  that  it  was  "  respectable." 
To  the  very  meagre  equipment  of  1793  there  had  been 
added  a  water- tank  with  reservoirs  for  gases,  a  com- 
pound blow-pipe,  a  slender  stock  of  crucibles  and  re- 
torts, a  miscellaneous  assortment  of  glass  and  earthen 
ware  for  various  substitute  purposes,  all  of  which  was 
installed  in  a  little  reconstructed  "hat-shop,"  brought 
from  Spring  Street  and  placed  on  the  campus  near 
East  College. 

In  regard  to  another  matter  of  equipment,  a  college 
seal,  the  Trustees  followed  the  line  of  least  resistance 
and  adopted  that  of  the  Free  School  with  its  legend, 
E  Liberalitate  E.  Williams  Armigeri,  and  its  device, 
three  scholars  holding  books  in  their  hands  standing 
before  their  instructor  who  is  seated  in  a  chair.  Sep- 
tember i,  1802,  they  voted  to  procure  a  new  one. 
There  was  delay  in  making  the  change  and  they 
did  not  actually  "break  and  discontinue  the  former 

1  Stiles,  Diary,  April  17,  1794.         2  Vermont  Gazette,  August,  1798. 

3  Correspondence  of  Williams  Review,  April  16,  1874.  "  Voted  that 
Professor  Hopkins  may  exchange  the  old  telescope  for  the  bones  of  some 
animal  found  in  Babylonia."  (Records  of  the  Trustees,  August  16-18, 
1852.) 

53 


WILLIAMS  COLLEGE 

seal"  l  until  1805.  Retaining  the  original  legend  they 
adopted  a  device  in  which  a  globe,  telescope,  scroll  of 
manuscript,  a  sprig  of  laurel,  and  an  ink  bottle  with 
a  pen  in  it  appear  —  the  whole  design  illumined  by  a 
burst  of  sunshine. 

The  history  of  Williams  professorships  began  in 
1794  when  the  Trustees  established  the  chair  of  Law 
and  Civil  Polity  and  invited  one  of  their  own  number, 
Theodore  Sedgwick,  to  take  charge  of  it.  He  declined 
the  position,  which  remained  vacant  until  1812,  when 
Daniel  Noble,  of  Williamstown,  accepted  an  appoint- 
ment to  it.  His  tenure  of  office  was  brief,  as  he  died  in 
1815  and  never  had  a  successor.  The  first  de  facto 
Williams  professorship,  however,  which  went  into 
operation  in  the  autumn  of  1795,  was  that  of  French, 
and  the  first  Williams  professor  in  active  service  a 
Canadian  —  Samuel  Mackay.  In  regard  to  the  life  of 
this  first  professor  before  he  came  to  Williamstown 
comparatively  little  is  known.  He  was  born  at  Cham- 
bly,  near  Montreal,  in  1764,  and  may  have  been  an 
ensign  for  the  two  years  1784-86  in  the  Sixtieth  Brit- 
ish Regiment  stationed  on  the  island  of  Jamaica.2 
Whatever  obscurity  rests  upon  this  military  episode, 
it  is  certain  that  he  married  a  daughter  of  Marquis  de 
Lotbeniere  3  and  in  1793  was  living  at  Bennington, 

1  Records  of  the  Trustees,  September  3,  1805. 

2  MS.  letter,  administrators  of  the  estate  of  Gordon  Mackay,  a  grand- 
son. 

3  Marquis  de  Lotbeniere,  military  engineer,  had  in  charge  the  whole 
system  of  Canadian  defence  from  the  defeat  of  Baron  Dieskau  at  Lake 
George  in  1755  until  1758,  when  he  was  superseded.    He  urged  the 
authorities  to  fortify  the  heights  of  Quebec  between  Sillery  and  Anse- 
des-Meres  and  was  assured  that  they  could  not  be  scaled.    "But," 
replied  the  Marquis,  "  I  used  to  climb  them  and  with  no  great  diffi- 

54 


THE  BEGINNINGS  OF  THE  COLLEGE 

Vermont.  Possibly  he  may  have  taught  French  in  the 
then  well-known  local  academy,  Clio  Hall,  and  at- 
tracted the  attention  of  the  Rev.  Dr.  Job  Swift,  pas- 
tor of  the  Congregational  Church  and  a  Trustee  of  the 
college.  At  all  events,  whoever  his  sponsors  were,  he 
became  Professor  of  French  in  1795  and  held  the  posi- 
tion until  1799. 

Our  knowledge  of  his  Williamstown  life  is  scarcely 
less  fragmentary  than  of  that  which  preceded  it. 
One  point  in  regard  to  it  the  advertising  columns 
of  local  newspapers  make  quite  clear  —  his  salary, 
which  never  exceeded  four  hundred  dollars  a  year,1 
failed  to  meet  his  expenses,  and  he  attempted  to  pro- 
vide for  the  inevitable  deficits  by  establishing  a  book- 
store:— 

SAMUEL  MACKAY 

Professor  of  the  French  Language  in 
Williams  College 

Begs  leave  to  acquaint  his  friends  in  particular  and  the 
public  in  general  that  in  order  to  obviate  the  inconven- 
ience of  the  want  of  a  BOOK  STORE  in  this  place  he  has 
supplied  himself  with  an  assortment  of 

American  and  Imported  BOOKS 
and  a  general  assortment  of 

STATIONARY 

Which  he  will  sell  at  the  lowest  Boston  or  Albany  prices 
for  ready  pay  only.2 

culty  when  I  was  a  schoolboy."  Subsequently  General  Wolfe  also 
climbed  them.  (N.E.  Historical  and  Genealogical  Register,  50,  54-59; 
Francois  Daniel,  Histoire  des  Grandes  Families  Francises  du  Canada, 
309-11.) 

1  Records  of  the  Trustees,  September  4,  1798. 

2  Vermont  Gazette,  October  14,  1796.  Western  Star,  October  16,  1797. 

55 


WILLIAMS  COLLEGE 

At  their  meeting  September  3,  1799,  the  Trustees 
"voted  to  abolish  the  Professorship  ...  in  French/' 
and  so  effectively  did  they  accomplish  their  purpose 
that  fifty-three  years  passed  before  it  was  reestab- 
lished. Though  reasons  for  this  measure  may  have 
been  abundant,  they  did  not  think  it  necessary  to  give 
any  of  them  and  there  is  nothing  better  in  the  way  of 
explanation  than  a  "wavering  conjecture."  It  seems 
hardly  probable  that  the  action  of  the  trustees  was 
inspired  by  hostility  to  Professor  Mackay,  since  in 
their  prospectus  for  1798-99  —  the  last  year  of  his 
connection  with  the  college  —  he  figured  as  "  the  able 
and  accomplished'*  head  of  the  French  department, 
and  in  1801  they  conferred  upon  him  the  honorary 
degree  of  Master  of  Arts.  Probably  he  was  a  victim 
of  the  fierce  anti-French  sentiment  which  sprang  up 
in  the  country  during  the  last  two  years  of  the  cen- 
tury. 

Though  his  connection  with  the  college  was  at  an 
end,  Professor  Mackay  remained  in  Williamstown  for 
the  next  four  or  five  years.  Whatever  may  have  been 
the  fate  of  his  bookstore,  he  undertook  some  business 
in  local  real  estate,  purchasing  in  1800-03  not  ^ess 
than  eleven  parcels  of  it.  This  business  apparently 
continued  until  the  autumn  of  1804,  when  all  the 
parcels  with  a  single  exception  had  been  sold.1  The 
only  present  memorial  of  his  Williamstown  period  is 
found  in  the  cemetery  on  Hemlock  Brook  —  a  tomb- 
stone 

1  Registry  of  Deeds,  Adams.  Professor  Mackay's  name  appears  in  the 
directories  of  Boston  for  1807-15.  During  these  years  he  published  three 
volumes  of  translations  from  the  French. 

56 


THE  BEGINNINGS  OF  THE  COLLEGE 

Erected  in  Memory 

of 
M[ar]ia  Lo[uis]a  Cha[rti]er  de  Lotbiniere 

wife  of 
Capt.  Sam[ue]l  McKay  U.  S.  Inf[ant]ry 

She  died 
July  10,  1802  Aged  41. l 

After  the  retirement  of  Professor  Mackay  the  col- 
lege pulled  along  with  instructors  of  no  higher  grade 
than  tutors  until  1806,  when  one  of  them,  Gamaliel  S. 
Olds  (1801),  was  inducted  into  the  new  chair  of  Math- 
ematics and  Natural  Theology.  On  this  occasion  he 
delivered  an  inaugural  oration,  which  attracted  atten- 
tion and  made  a  favorable  impression.2 

Unfortunately  Professor  Olds*  connection  with  the 
college  was  brief.  It  came  to  an  abrupt  termination 
during  the  autumn  of  1808  in  connection  with  a  disas- 
trous undergraduate  rebellion.  This  rebellion  was  the 
second  in  the  history  of  the  college.  Our  knowledge  of 
the  earlier  disturbance,  which  grew  out  of  some  con- 

1  This  tombstone  is  also  a  memorial  to  Mrs.  Mackay 's  father:  — 

The  right  honble 
Chartier  Marquis 

de 

Lotbiniere  died  N.  York 

Oct.  7th  1798  Aged  75  His  remains 

were  buried  in  Potters  field 

This  was  inscribed 

at  the 
special  request 

of 

his  departed  daughter 

Now  Mouldering 

in  this 

dust. 

1  An  Inaugural  Oration,  Delivered  in  the  Chapel  of  Williams  College, 
October  14,  1806.   Monthly  Anthology,  January,  1807,  49,  50. 

57 


WILLIAMS  COLLEGE 

troversy  or  other  over  the  March  examinations  in 
1802,  is  derived  wholly  from  letters  of  President 
Fitch.  " Three  classes  in  succession,"  he  wrote,  "  were 
in  a  state  of  insurrection.  .  .  .  For  ten  days  we  had  a 
good  deal  of  difficulty;  but  the  faculty  stood  firm  and 
determined  to  give  up  no  right.  At  last,  without  the 
loss  of  a  single  member,  we  reduced  all  to  due  obedi- 
ence and  subordination.  Never  had  I  ...  occasion 
for  so  much  firmness  and  prudence  —  not  even  in  the 
great  rebellion  of  1782  at  Yale.  .  .  .  The  present  gen- 
eration, I  trust,  will  never  burn  their  fingers  again."  l 
President  Fitch  did  not  prove  to  be  a  very  good 
prophet.  A  second  and  more  formidable  "  insurrec- 
tion "  was  awaiting  him  barely  six  years  after  the  date 
of  his  triumphant  letter.  It  seems  that  the  two  tutors 
—  William  Fitch  Backus  and  Oliver  Chapin  —  fell 
into  such  grievous  disfavor  with  the  Sophomore  class 
that  a  petition  was  prepared  in  the  summer  of  1808 
and  sent  to  the  authorities,  demanding  their  dismissal 
at  the  close  of  the  college  year.  This  petition  did  not 
please  the  President  and  Trustees.  On  the  contrary, 
they  considered  it  a  rank  exhibition  of  impertinence 
and  retained  the  unpopular  tutors.  The  autumn  term 
opened  peacefully  and  the  troubles  of  the  preceding 
summer  might  have  remained  quiescent  if  Professor 
Olds,  unwilling  to  let  well  enough  alone,  had  not  in- 
sisted that  the  Sophomores,  now  become  Juniors, 
should  send  the  tutors  a  formal  apology.  This  they 
emphatically  refused  to  do,  appealed  to  the  President 
and  won  him  over  to  their  side  of  the  controversy. 
For  the  tutors  nothing  remained  but  resignations,  and 
1  Durfee,  History  of  Williams  College,  85,  86. 
58 


THE  BEGINNINGS  OF  THE  COLLEGE 

they  were  quickly  forthcoming.1  Professor  Olds, 
chivalrously  making  their  cause  his  own,  also  retired, 
and  the  college  lost  a  fine  linguist,  a  mathematician 
of  distinction,  an  attractive  writer,  and  an  inspiring 
teacher.  After  leaving  Williamstown  he  studied  the- 
ology and  was  settled  from  i8i3toi8i6as  pastor  of 
the  Congregational  Church  in  Greenfield.  In  1815  he 
published  a  vigorous  book  designed  to  enlighten  mis- 
informed people  of  that  town  who  were  saying  that 
"nothing  but  ignorance  prevented  any  intelligent 
man  from  becoming  an  Episcopalian.'*  2  Subse- 
quently he  resumed  teaching  and  in  various  institu- 
tions, —  in  the  University  of  Vermont,  in  Amherst, 
and  the  University  of  Georgia,  —  but  the  Williams 
rebellion  of  1808  dealt  him  a  rude  blow,  from  the  shock 
of  which  he  never  fully  recovered.  And  it  also  closed 
the  college  itself  until  a  new  faculty  could  be  secured 
—  a  period  of  four  weeks. 

Chester  Dewey,  of  the  class  of  1806,  who  succeeded 
Professor  Olds,  was  tutor  for  two  years  and  then  pro- 
moted to  a  full  professorship.  He  taught  the  Juniors 
mathematics,  astronomy,  and  natural  philosophy. 
One  would  suppose  he  had  little  occasion  to  look  fur- 
ther for  occupation.  But,  concluding  that  the  cur- 
riculum ought  to  include  chemistry,  he  visited  New 
Haven,  attended  the  lectures  and  experiments  of 

1  An  entry  in  the  minutes  of  the  Trustees  in  regard  to  one  of  the 
tutors,  though  not  a  matter  of  particular  importance,  may  possibly  be 
worth  quoting,  since  the  incident  occurred  while  he  was  under  fire: 
"Voted  to  reimburse  Tutor  Backus  for  a  counterfeit  five  dollar  bill 
which  had  been  paid  him  by  the  treasurer."  (Records  of  the  Trustees, 
September  6,  1808.) 

2  Olds,  Episcopacy  and  Presbyterian  Parity,  Greenfield,  1815,  IV. 

59 


WILLIAMS  COLLEGE 

Professor  Silliman  for  a  short  time,  and  thereupon 
began  to  give  instruction  in  the  subject  at  Williams- 
town.1 

Though  full  professors  may  have  been  few  in  the 
time  of  President  Fitch,  tutors  abounded  —  there 
were  thirty-nine  of  them  between  1793  and  1815. 
Among  the  young  men  who  had  a  temporary  connec- 
tion with  the  college  faculty  two  —  Jeremiah  Day 
and  Henry  Davis  —  achieved  distinction  in  the  edu- 
cational world. 

Of  student  life  on  its  intimate  and  personal  side 
relatively  few  contemporary  data  survive.  The  most 
important  document  of  this  sort  is  the  diary  of  a 
Williams  Senior,  Thomas  Robbins,  begun  January  i, 
1796,  and  continued  with  daily  entries,  not  only  to  his 
graduation  the  following  September,  but  nearly  half 
a  century  beyond  that  event.  It  covers,  therefore, 
eight  months  of  the  college  year  1795-96,  and  might 
naturally  be  expected  to  present  a  semi-confidential 
report  of  undergraduate  Williams  in  the  third  year  of 
its  history.  But  while  unquestionably  valuable,  the 
diary  on  the  whole  is  disappointing.  It  contains  much 
scrappy,  miscellaneous  information.  We  find  meteor- 
ological records  for  forty-eight  days  of  the  eight 
months.  Then  religious  functions  of  various  kinds  — 
conferences,  prayer  meetings,  Sunday  services  —  are 
faithfully  chronicled.  Not  less  than  eight  mortuary 
notices  appear.  Health  conditions  in  town  and  college 
get  a  good  deal  of  attention  and  in  this  connection 
three  interesting  items  are  noted :  — 

1  Durfee,  History  of  Williams  College,  358.   Correspondent  of  Wil- 
liams Review,  May  16,  1874. 

60 


THE  BEGINNINGS  OF  THE  COLLEGE 

"  March  28th.  A  number  of  scholars  went  to  Ben- 
nington  to  have  small-pox. 

"  April  i6th.   Scholars  in  small-pox  have  it  hard. 

"April  31.  Some  of  the  scholars  return  from  the 
smallpox." 

In  Thomas  Robbins'  day  students  smoked,  played 
cards,  and  sometimes  gambled  —  diversions  which  he 
regarded  with  great  displeasure.  Also  they  had  such  a 
craze  for  dancing  that  President  Fitch,  on  the  3Oth  of 
March,  "  put  an  entire  stop  "  to  a  class  in  which  it  was 
taught,  and  "acted  very  wisely."  Then  the  fellows 
celebrated  the  conclusion  of  examinations  "by  drink- 
ing companies,"  and  their  festivities  at  the  close  of  the 
college  year  1795-96  seem  to  have  been  unusually 
hilarious.  "Last  night,"  wrote  the  grieved  and  dis- 
gusted diarist,  "  the  worst  frolic  here  that  I  ever  knew. 
.  . .  My  feelings  exceedingly  wounded  by  the  carouse." 

The  feelings  of  the  Rev.  Jedediah  Bushnell,  who 
graduated  the  next  year,  were  also  deeply  wounded  by 
what  he  saw  and  heard  in  college  where  "the  French 
Revolution  was  very  popular."  While  few  of  the  stu- 
dents may  have  been  "in  theory  settled  infidels,"  the 
great  majority  considered  themselves  deists  and  their 
morality  was  little  better  than  their  theology.1 

A  Freshman,  Timothy  Woodbridge,  grandson  of 
Jonathan  Edwards,  once  widely  known  as  the  "Blind 
Minister,"  wrote  in  1799  that  the  state  of  college 
morals  was  "decidedly  low."  Plenty  of  "vices" 
abounded,  though  he  mentioned  none  more  serious 
than  smoking  and  card-playing.2 

1  Durfee,  History  of  Williams  College,  no,  ill. 

2  Woodbridge,  Autobiography  of  a  Blind  Minister,  44. 

61 


WILLIAMS  COLLEGE 

President  Griffin,  in  his  historical  sermon  at  the 
dedication  of  the  New  Chapel,  September  2,  1828, 
reviewed  the  early  religious  history  of  the  college. 
Among  the  graduates  of  the  first  six  classes,  according 
to  his  statement,  "  exclusive  of  two  .  .  .  brought  into 
the  church  by  revivals  in  Litchfield  County,"  there 
were  only  six  professors  of  religion,  and  for  seventeen 
months  of  the  academic  years  1798-1800  the  statistics 
make  a  still  worse  showing,  since  in  that  interval 
there  seems  to  have  been  only  one  undergraduate 
church-member  in  the  institution.1 

Though  enthusiasm  for  the  sentiments  and  theories 
of  the  French  Revolution  may  have  cooled  percepti- 
bly with  the  opening  of  the  new  century,  the  non- 
religious  tone  persisted  until  a  revival,  beginning  in 
1805  and  continuing  intermittently  for  a  considerable 
period,  changed  the  atmosphere  and  introduced  a 
new  era.2 

Whatever  this  revival  may  have  done  for  individu- 
als —  and  Gordon  Hall  was  among  the  converts  — 
there  also  grew  out  of  it  an  institution,  the  Theological 
Society,  which  had  a  long  and  important  history.  For 
the  next  forty  years  it  was  a  large  factor  in  determin- 
ing the  tone  and  temper  of  the  college.  At  the  weekly 
meetings  the  subjects  discussed  included  many  of  the 
toughest  questions  in  the  history  of  divinity,  such  as 
—  "Has  God  reprobated  a  part  of  mankind ?"  "  Did 
the  human  soul  of  Christ  exist  from  eternity  ?"  "  Are 

1  Griffin,  Sermon  at  the  Dedication  of  the  New  Chapel,  19,  20. 

2  There  were  two  other  religious  quickenings  in  the  time  of  President 
Fitch,  one  in  1812  and  the  other  in  1815,  but  they  awakened  no  general 
or  continued  interest. 

62 


THE  BEGINNINGS  OF  THE  COLLEGE 

we  strictly  guilty  of  Adam's  sin?"  "Ought  a  person 
to  be  willing  to  be  damned  to  be  saved?"  "  Is  it  con- 
sistent with  the  character  of  God  to  allow  wicked  men 
to  work  miracles?" 

Members  of  the  society  bought  some  rather  for- 
midable theological  treatises.  Seven  of  them,  for  ex- 
ample, were  among  the  subscribers  to  the  eight- 
volume  edition  of  Edwards*  works  published  in  1808 
—  a  number  not  exceeded  by  the  aggregate  of  under- 
graduate subscribers  in  all  the  other  New  England 
colleges.1  Doubtless  they  generally  accepted  the  doc- 
trines set  forth  in  these  tremendous  books  —  cer- 
tainly one  of  them,  whose  theology  we  know  about, 
accepted  them  without  much  qualification.  In  order 
to  enlighten  or  confound  a  troublesome  objector  he 
wrote  out  a  formal  statement  of  his  creed.  "  In  con- 
versation ...  on  the  subject  of  religion,"  he  said, 
"you  have  suggested  that  the  doctrines  I  defended 
were  more  dangerous  than  infidelity,  that  I  was  en- 
thusiastic, deluded,  and  uncharitable."  He  then  pro- 
ceeded to  state  his  theological  opinions  —  and  with 
unmistakable  point  and  vigor:  "  I  believe  that  all  men 
are  by  nature  depraved,  incapable  of  performing  a 
single  action  acceptable  to  God  or  originating  a  single 
good  thought;  .  .  .  that  the  happiness  or  misery  of 
every  individual  of  the  human  race  was  known  and 
determined  by  God  from  all  eternity,  yet  without 
destroying  our  accountability."  2  The  unconvinced 
objector  persisted  in  the  opinion  that  such  doctrines 
were  worse  than  infidelity. 

1  Edwards1  Works,  VIIL  List  of  Subscribers. 

2  Charles  Jenkins  (1813),  MS.  letter,  June  17,  1812. 

63 


WILLIAMS  COLLEGE 

We  are  not  to  suppose  that  the  Theological  Society 
never  lapsed  from  the  contemplation  of  high  themes 
of  divinity.  At  times,  and  especially  in  later  years, 
some  more  practical  and  mundane  subjects  emerged 
in  the  discussions,  among  which  may  be  mentioned 
the  tainted  money  of  slave-holders,  preaching  without 
notes,  the  Bible  as  a  college  textbook,  "the  gloomy 
and  deplorable  condition  of  the  Aborigines  of  our  dark 
and  trackless  forests. "  1 

Nor  are  the  " Minutes"  of  the  society  wholly  given 
over  to  discussions  theological,  missionary,  or  educa- 
tional. At  times  they  lapse  into  such  extraneous  and 
unexpected  matters  as  the  discipline  of  misbehaving 
members.  None  of  these  young  theologians  ought  to 
have  troubled  Israel,  but  some  of  them  apparently 
had  a  defective  sense  of  the  proprieties.  Two  offend- 
ers—  "Cooley  and  Lansing"  —  according  to  the 
records  of  June  17,  1813,  "acknowledged  their  faults 
to  the  society  and  were  accepted."  In  1814  "  Plumb, 
having  been  previously  impeached  and  on  being 
found  not  guilty,  .  .  .  was  acquitted  by  ballot."  A 
little  later  "Boltwood  and  Wing,"  a  brace  of  refrac- 
tory sinners,  "were  dismembered  for  refusing  to  pay 
their  fines,  and  on  account  of  the  disturbance  they 
made,  the  society  wisely  adjourned  until  the  next 
Lord's  day  evening."  2 

But  these  matters  of  discipline  are  incidental — curi- 
ous, rather  than  important.  "  The  society  has  held  on 
its  way  gloriously,"  said  Albert  Hopkins,  in  an  anni- 
versary address,  November  n,  1841,  "through  the 

1  Minutes  of  the  Theological  Society,  March  6,  1825. 

2  Minutes  of  the  Theological  Society. 


THE  BEGINNINGS  OF  THE  COLLEGE 

changes  which  have  alternately  obscured  and  bright- 
ened the  prospects  of  the  institution  and  of  reli- 
gion." l 

The  Theological  Society  had  the  field  to  itself  for 
several  years  —  how  many  we  do  not  know.  It  is 
certain,  however,  that  in  1820  another  religious  or- 
ganization —  the  Society  of  Inquiry  —  was  in  exist- 
ence, as  it  held  an  adjourned  meeting  June  7.  In  1833 
it  became  the  Mills  Society  of  Inquiry,  and  in  1849 
this  organization  and  the  older  one  were  united  and 
called  the  Mills  Theological  Society.  That  nomencla- 
ture did  not  prove  very  stable.  It  was  changed  first  to 
the  Mills  Young  Men's  Christian  Association  and 
then  to  the  Williams  Christian  Association. 

Nor  is  the  history  of  the  literary  societies  less  inter- 
esting or  important.  The  earliest  of  them  was  the 
Adelphic  Union,  a  debating  club,  organized  soon  after 
the  opening  of  the  college.  In  1795  membership  had 
outgrown  accommodations  to  such  an  extent  that  it 
was  divided  into  two  subsidiaries  —  the  Philologian 
and  the  Philotechnian  societies.  The  Union  survived, 
but  with  changed  functions.  For  a  long  period  occa- 
sional public  debates  and  annual  exhibitions  were  held 
under  its  auspices  with  speakers  representing  the  two 
auxiliaries.  Many  distinguished  men  also  delivered 
addresses  before  it  at  commencement.  The  list  of  ora- 
tors between  1850  and  1880  includes  Rufus  Choate, 
Henry  Ward  Beecher,  Edwin  P.  Whipple,  Wendell 
Phillips,  Charles  Sumner,  William  Lloyd  Garrison, 
George  William  Curtis,  and  Charles  Francis  Adams, 
Jr.  Though  the  Union  still  exists,  its  functions  have 
1  Boston  Recorder,  December  17,  1841. 

65 


WILLIAMS  COLLEGE 

shrunken  to  a  formality  —  to  a  sort  of  official  patron- 
age of  the  intercollegiate  debating  league. 

At  first  and  for  reasons  not  very  obvious,  the  debat- 
ing societies  held  their  meetings  behind  closed  doors 
—  protected  themselves  from  the  outside  world  by 
means  of  tokens,  badges,  and  grips,  were  pledged  to 
secrecy  "on  the  honor  of  a  gentleman."  In  spite  of 
this  boyish  nonsense  the  members  gave  themselves 
seriously  to  the  business  in  hand.  They  discussed 
immigration,  the  liberty  of  the  press,  novel-reading, 
lawyers,  emancipation,  universal  salvation,  the  coun- 
try town  as  the  seat  of  a  college,  the  utility  of  religion, 
the  relation  of  legislative  representatives  to  their  con- 
stituents, the  dismemberment  of  the  Union,  theatres, 
a  big  navy,  the  conquest  of  Canada,  divorce,  the 
French  Revolution,  the  Louisiana  Purchase,  and  the 
education  of  girls.1  These  subjects,  taken  quite  at 
random,  would  seem  to  show  that  Williams  students, 
though  living  in  a  frontier  settlement,  were  not 
wholly  out  of  touch  with  the  world. 

Concerning  the  classroom  and  its  history  in  this 
period  our  knowledge  is  much  less  than  in  regard  to 
what  happened  in  the  debating  and  theological  socie- 
ties. Though  a  scholar  and  lover  of  books,  Thomas 
Robbins  contents  himself  with  such  barren  entries  in 
his  diary  as  —  the  Seniors  began  to  " recite"  Paley's 
"  Moral  Philosophy"  January  2  and  Vattel's  "  Law  of 
Nations"  March  22.  A  1799  Freshman,  writing  dur- 
ing his  autumn  term,  is  a  little  more  definite.  He 
thought  that  the  lessons  were  too  short  and  conse- 

1  Records  of  the  Philotechnian  Society,   passim.    The  Philologian 
Records  previous  to  1817  were  destroyed  by  "  Philotechnian  vandals." 

66 


THE  BEGINNINGS  OF  THE  COLLEGE 

quently  the  students  did  not  have  enough  to  do.  "I 
often  come  up  from  morning  recitation  into  my 
room/'  he  said,  " sling  my  great  coat  over  me  and  get 
my  forenoon  recitation  before  breakfast  so  that  I  have 
nothing  to  do  before  recitation  except  what  I  please. 
Sometimes  I  take  up  a  Latin  book  that  is  out  of  our 
course  and  study  a  while;  sometimes  I  read  a  book  of 
travels  and  sometimes  a  novel.  ...  It  is  a  dangerous 
thing  I  think  for  a  boy  of  fifteen  to  have  a  whole  fore- 
noon left  to  his  own  fancy."  1  This  particular  boy 
could  "get  his  recitations "  with  very  exceptional  ease 
and  facility. 

The  college,  in  spite  of  its  remoteness  and  seclusion, 
did  not  escape  political  excitements.  In  1796  there 
was  a  violent  contest  over  the  election  of  a  Repre- 
sentative to  Congress.  The  opposing  candidates  were 
Thompson  J.  Skinner,  Trustee  and  Treasurer  of  the 
College,  and  Ephraim  Williams,  of  Stockbridge,  kins- 
man and  namesake  of  the  founder.2  Skinner  —  fluent, 
plausible,  sharp- tongued  —  had  plenty  of  enemies 
who  laid  to  his  charge  such  political  sins  as  speaking 
disrespectfully  of  George  Washington  and  opposing 
the  treaty  with  England.  These  enemies  also  alleged 
that  his  private  character  was  "doubtful  and  ques- 
tionable," and  his  friends  thought  that  a  "certificate" 
vouching  for  him  politically  and  otherwise  might  be 
useful.  President  Fitch,  asked  to  prepare  one,  good- 
naturedly  consented.3  This  "certificate"  did  not 

1  Woodbridge,  Autobiography  of  a  Blind  Minister,  45. 

2  Western  Star,  August  30,  1796. 

3  Skinner  was  a  Trustee  of  the  College,  1793-1809,  and  its  Treasurer, 
1 793-98.   A  committee  appointed  to  examine  his  accounts  reported, 
September  31,  1799,  that  though  he  had  kept  them  in  "a  singular  man- 

6? 


WILLIAMS  COLLEGE 

please  Skinner's  opponents  and  they  expressed  their 
sentiments  freely  in  the  newspapers.  "The  President 
of  Williams  College/'  wrote  one  of  them,  "has  been 
duped."  Another  believed  Mr.  Fitch  to  be  an  honest 
man,  but  thought  he  had  "been  seduced  to  do  a  very 
weak  and  imprudent  thing."  *  A  third  doubted 
whether  one  could  have  much  confidence  in  a  man, 
who  after  having  been  in  public  life  eight  or  nine 
years  "requires  a  certificate  from  the  President  of  a 
College."  2  Mr.  Skinner,  however,  managed  to  carry 
the  election  in  spite  of  the  hostile  newspaper  pother. 
The  defeated  candidate,  we  learn,  suffered  some  dis- 
advantage from  the  fact  that  he  happened  to  be  a 
lawyer  —  a  fact  which,  in  the  opinion  of  "A  True 
Friend  to  his  Country,"  was  a  serious  if  not  fatal  dis- 
qualification. "We  do  not  want  so  many  lawyers  in 
Congress,"  wrote  this  high-grade  patriot.  .  .  .  "They 
live  at  hearts  ease  all  their  days  —  men  of  pleasure 
that  scarcely  bring  in  water  to  wash  their  own  hands. 
.  .  .  We  can  never  have  things  right  in  America  until 
we  change  .  .  .  and  send  [to  Congress]  good,  sensible 
men  of  our  own  cloth." 3  The  sort  of  cloth  which  this 
"True  Friend"  had  in  mind  was  the  homespun  to  be 
found  among  the  farmers  of  Berkshire  County. 

The  great  political  crisis  through  which  the  country 
passed  in  the  last  years  of  the  eighteenth  century  had 

ner"  the  funds  were  intact.  The  State  of  Massachusetts,  of  which  he 
was  Treasurer,  1806-08,  did  not  fare  so  well,  as  an  investigation 
showed  a  shortage  of  $70,000.  The  defalcation  made  a  tremendous 
sensation  throughout  the  Commonwealth  and  must  be  reckoned  among 
the  greater  misfortunes  that  befell  the  college  in  the  hard  times  of  1808. 

1  Western  Star,  October  31,  1796.  2  Ibid.,  August  30,  1796. 

3  Ibid.,  October  31,  1796. 

68 


THE  BEGINNINGS  OF  THE  COLLEGE 

two  distinct  and  appreciable  consequences  in  Wil- 
liamstown.  One  of  them  has  already  been  considered 
—  the  summary  action  of  the  Trustees  of  Williams 
College  in  bundling  the  French  language  and  litera- 
ture out  of  the  curriculum.  The  other  was  a  letter 
dated  June  19,  1798,  from  four  Williams  Seniors  ad- 
dressed to  President  John  Adams.  Speaking  for  the 
entire  undergraduate  body  they  applauded  his  course 
and  offered  their  services  in  any  emergency  that 
might  arise.  To  this  letter  the  President  made  an  ap- 
propriate and  handsome  response.1  On  the  appoint- 
ment of  Washington  as  commander-in-chief  of  the 
army  three  weeks  later  there  was  an  enthusiastic 
demonstration  in  Williamstown.  The  college  build- 
ings and  private  residences  were  illuminated  and 
noisy  processions  of  students  marched  about  the 
streets.2 

The  faculty  and  undergraduates  were  mainly  Fed- 
eralists —  a  circumstance  likely  sooner  or  later  to 
provoke  criticism.  Whatever  may  have  been  said  in 
private  the  partisanship  apparently  did  not  attract 
public  attention  until  1806,  when  the  editor  of  the 
"Pittsfield  Sun"  attended  Commencement  and  was 
so  desperately  displeased  by  the  orations  of  the  grad- 
uating class  that  in  speaking  of  them  his  rhetoric  ran 
wild.  "  It  is  with  extreme  regret,"  he  wrote,  "that  we 
have  occasion  to  indulge  in  unfavorable  strictures. 
.  .  .  The  great  sentiment  of  indignation  excited  .  .  . 
by  the  indecent  streams  of  political  violence  which 
tarnished  the  annual  Commencement  at  this  college  a 
few  years  ago  ...  in  some  measure  checked  the  rag- 

1  Appendix  V.  2  Vermont  Gazette,  July  19,  1798. 

69 


WILLIAMS  COLLEGE 

ing  of  that  political  mania  which  had  so  long  infested 
the  institution.  Since  that  period  the  streams  .  .  . 
were  evidently  less  turbid  and  promised  ere  long  to 
fertilize  and  improve  the  country  through  which  they 
were  destined  to  flow.  The  performances  of  the  pres- 
ent year,  however,  have  dashed  from  our  lips  the 
pleasing  cup  of  expectation.  And  a  fresh  eruption  of 
combustible  and  noisome  matter  warns  Republicans 
to  beware  how  they  trust  the  education  of  their  sons 
on  the  burning  sides  of  a  political  volcano."  * 

The  following  week  the  "  Sun  "  printed  a  letter  from 
a  correspondent  whom  the  orations  disturbed  quite  as 
much  as  they  did  the  editor,  though  he  could  not  ex- 
press his  sentiments  in  the  same  extraordinary  fash- 
ion. "At  this  college,"  he  wrote,  "youth  are  taught  to 
be  heady,  to  despise  government  and  to  speak  evil  of 
dignitaries.  ...  No  good  Republican  will  retain  any 
further  connection  with  that  society."  He  thought 
the  Legislature  ought  to  interfere  and  put  an  end  to 
the  "baneful  influences"  of  this  notorious  institution, 
"on  the  morals  and  taste  of  our  youth."  2 

Whether  in  consequence  of  these  criticisms  or  for 
some  other  reason  the  orations  of  the  young  men  in 
1807  seem  to  have  been  quite  different  in  sentiment 
and  temper  from  those  of  preceding  years.  The  editor 
of  the  "Sun"  was  in  attendance  to  hear  them  and 
went  back  to  Pittsfield  smiling.  It  gave  him  a  lively 
satisfaction  that  for  once  at  Commencement  "this 
temple  of  science  had  not  been  prostituted  to  the  low 
purposes  of  calumny  and  slander."  3 

1  Pittsfield  Sun,  September  18,  1806. 

2  Ibid.,  September  25,  1806.  »  Ibid.,  September  19,  1807. 

70 


THE  BEGINNINGS  OF  THE  COLLEGE 

It  was  hardly  to  be  expected  that  President  Fitch 
with  his  aggressive  Federalism  would  escape  criticism, 
and  some  queer  rumors  got  into  the  newspapers.  One 
of  them  gave  currency  to  the  story  that  he  refused  to 
allow  the  students  to  celebrate  the  Fourth  of  July, 
because,  such  was  the  evil  plight  of  national  affairs, 
the  day  had  become  a  curse  rather  than  a  blessing.1 
This  old  wives'  tale,  bruited  abroad  in  the  disastrous 
year  of  the  Sophomore  rebellion,  probably  did  some 
mischief. 

Toward  the  close  of  his  administration  President 
Fitch  appears  as  the  leader  of  a  crusade  against  Sab- 
bath-breaking and  its  attendant  mischiefs  in  Western 
Massachusetts.  On  the  organization  of  a  society  at 
Lenox,  August  16,  1814,  in  the  interest  of  this  move- 
ment, he  delivered  an  earnest  address.  Alarmed  by 
present  conditions  and  tendencies  the  promoters  of 
the  crusade  attempted  to  effect  a  reformation  in 
morals  and  manners  throughout  Berkshire  County.2 
Their  first  demonstration  was  against  Sunday  travel- 
ling, which  had  become  quite  general.  Suddenly  the 
old  blue  laws  against  it  awoke  from  their  torpor. 
Somebody  interested  in  the  crusade  counted  one 
Lord's  Day  fifty  "carriages,  waggons  and  travellers" 
on  the  Lenox  turnpike.  They  were  detained  until 
after  sundown,  and  then  allowed  to  proceed.  Evi- 
dently the  men  and  women  who  went  out  walking  or 
driving  on  Sundays  in  the  Berkshires  a  hundred  years 
ago  must  have  been  a  good-natured  generation.  Very 
few  of  them  showed  fight  and  there  was  little  occasion 

1  The  World  (Bennington,  Vermont),  July  n,  1808. 

2  An  Address  to  Friends  of  Order,  Morality,  and  Religion. 

71 


WILLIAMS  COLLEGE 

for  prosecutions  or  fines.  Of  the  large  number  over- 
hauled at  Lenox  only  two  offered  any  defence.1  Presi- 
dent Fitch  and  his  associates  had  a  signal  though  brief 
success  in  their  propaganda.  For  three  Sundays  fol- 
lowing November  18,  it  is  said  that  the  Lenox  turn- 
pike was  practically  deserted  —  but  a  single  traveller 
venturing  upon  it.  The  crusade,  however,  soon  spent 
its  force  and  the  highways  ceased  to  be  a  solitude  on 
the  Lord's  Day. 

Not  less  than  six  hundred  and  eighty-nine  students 
entered  college  and  four  hundred  and  fifty  of  them 
received  degrees  in  the  time  of  President  Fitch.  Two 
graduates  became  United  States  Senators,  thirteen 
members  of  the  National  House  of  Representatives, 
ten  professors  in  colleges  or  theological  seminaries, 
and  six  justices  of  the  Supreme  Court  in  as  many 
different  States. 

One  of  the  two  Senators,  Elijah  Hunt  Mills  (1797), 
of  Northampton,  who  had  been  prominent  as  lawyer 
and  member  of  the  State  Legislature,  was  elected  in 
1820.  After  seven  years  of  service  his  health  failed 
and  Daniel  Webster  succeeded  him.  A  man  of  refined, 
scholarly,  intellectual  cast,  his  memory,  if  it  survives 
at  all,  is  kept  alive  chiefly  by  "  Selections  from  his 
Correspondence,"  edited  by  Henry  Cabot  Lodge,  and 
published  in  1881. 

The  career  of  the  other  Senator,  Chester  Ashley 

(1813),  a  native  of  Amherst,  presents  many  points  of 

contrast  to  the  peaceful,  unromantic  life  of  Elijah 

Mills.    After  graduation  and  the  study  of  law,  he 

began  the  practice  of  his  profession  in  Illinois.  Two 

1  Farmers'  Herald,  December  14,  1814. 

72 


THE  BEGINNINGS  OF  THE  COLLEGE 

years  later  he  settled  in  Missouri  and  stayed  twelve 
months.  Then  he  removed  to  Little  Rock,  Arkansas, 
where  he  arrived  penniless  and  unknown.  A  man  of 
striking  personality,1  an  effective  stump-speaker,  ab- 
solutely sincere  and  trustworthy  withal,  he  quickly 
won  recognition,  and  in  1844  had  the  great  honor  of  a 
practically  unanimous  election  to  the  Federal  Senate. 
And  in  that  body,  though  a  newcomer,  he  was  given 
the  important  chairmanship  of  the  Judiciary  Com- 
mittee. But  his  sudden  death  at  Washington  in  1848 
cut  short  a  career  of  brilliant  promise. 

The  little  town  of  Westhampton  sent  to  Williams  in 
the  first  decade  of  the  last  century  two  students  who 
became  men  of  prominence  in  their  day.  One  of  them, 
Nathan  Hale,  son  of  the  Rev.  Enoch  Hale,  pastor  of 
the  Congregational  Church,  was  for  many  years  a 
prominent  citizen  of  Boston  —  editor  of  the  "  Daily 
Advertiser/'  promoter  of  public  improvements,  mem- 
ber of  the  Legislature  and  of  conventions  in  1820  and 
1853  for  revising  the  State  Constitution. 

In  the  autumn  of  1800,  when  Nathan,  then  sixteen 
years  old,  was  at  work  about  the  garden,  his  father 
called  him  to  the  house,  where  he  found  Vincent  Cof- 
fin, college  tutor,  who  had  come  to  Westhampton  in 
quest  of  students.  An  impromptu  entrance  examina- 
tion followed,  and  was  passed  without  difficulty.  The 
next  February  the  lad  rode  on  horseback  across  Berk- 
shire County  and  joined  the  Freshman  class.  He 
graduated  in  1804,  and  on  the  one  hundredth  anni- 
versary of  that  event  his  son,  Edward  Everett  Hale, 

1  N.  P.  Willis  said  that  Mr.  Ashley  "  was  the  handsomest  man  in  the 
Senate,  perhaps  in  the  world."  (Trowbridge,  Ashley  Genealogy,  148-53.) 

73 


WILLIAMS  COLLEGE 

was  present  and  read  a  part  of  his  father's  Commence- 
ment oration,  in  which  he  discussed  the  question, 
"  Has  society  for  the  last  fifty  years  been  in  a  state  of 
improvement?"  The  young  optimist  took  a  hopeful 
view  of  things  and  concluded  that  "if  a  man  were 
called  upon  to  point  out  a  model  of  national  happi- 
ness, he  would  without  hesitation  name  the  last  fifteen 
years  in  the  history  of  the  United  States."  l 

Justin  Edwards,  the  other  Westhampton  boy  and  a 
pupil  of  the  Rev.  Enoch  Hale,  went  to  Williamstown 
in  October,  1807,  on  foot  —  a  tramp  of  forty  miles. 
Though  he  devoted  only  eighteen  months  to  his  pre- 
paratory studies  and  only  three  years  to  his  college 
course,  at  graduation  in  1810  he  took  the  highest 
honors.  The  subject  of  his  oration  on  that  occasion 
was  "The  Signs  of  the  Times."  Conditions  had 
changed  somewhat  since  1804  when  his  townsman, 
Nathan  Hale,  discussed  the  same  topic.  In  Europe 
the  tremendous  disturbances  of  the  Napoleonic  era 
still  continued;  in  America  there  were  ominous  inti- 
mations of  trouble  with  England.  The  valedictorian 
of  1810  found  hope  and  reassurance  chiefly  in  the  new 
missionary  and  humanitarian  movement  which  a  little 
band  of  his  college  associates  "  prayed  into  existence" 
on  the  banks  of  the  Hoosac. 

Though  Justin  Edwards  evidently  did  not  slight  the 
prescribed  work  of  his  college  course,  none  of  his  class- 
mates and  few  undergraduates  of  any  period  could 
approach  him  as  a  reader  of  books.  For  the  three 
years  of  his  residence  in  Williamstown  the  number 
was  upwards  of  two  hundred  volumes,  and  the  list  con- 
1  Hale,  A  New  England  Boyhood.  Memories  of  a  Century. 

74 


THE  BEGINNINGS  OF  THE  COLLEGE 

tains  such  substantial  works  as  Hume's  " England,0 
Gibbon's  "Decline  and  Fall,"  the  writings  of  Reid 
and  Stewart,  Edwards  "On  the  Will,"  and  Black- 
stone's  "Commentaries."  l  The  subsequent  career  of 
this  wide- reading  undergraduate,  fulfilled  measurably 
his  early  promise.  A  leader  in  temperance  agitations, 
pastor  of  prominent  churches,  President  of  Andover 
Theological  Seminary,  he  must  be  considered  one  of 
the  greater  lights  of  the  New  England  pulpit  in  his 
time.2 

The  name  of  another  clergyman  of  this  period  — 
Orville  Dewey,  a  native  of  Sheffield  in  Southern  Berk- 
shire, valedictorian  of  the  class  of  1814  —  was  once 
"blown  far  and  wide  from  the  trump  of  fame."  3 
Contemporary  tribute  to  the  charm  of  his  personality 
and  to  his  oratorical  genius  are  many  and  unqualified. 
"God  seems  to  have  chosen  Dewey,"  said  Thomas 
Starr  King,  "to  speak  in  his  own  tongue."  4  "I  have 
heard,"  wrote  the  Rev.  Dr.  Morrison,  "many  of  the 
greatest  orators  of  our  time.  But  with  the  exception 
of  Daniel  Webster  and  Dr.  Channing  in  their  highest 
moments,  Mr.  Dewey  was  the  most  eloquent  man 
among  them  all."  6  The  tribute  of  the  Rev.  Dr.  Bel- 
lows, pastor  of  All  Souls  Church,  New  York,  president 
of  the  Sanitary  Commission  in  the  Civil  War,  and  no 
mean  orator  himself,  is  pitched  in  the  same  key. 
"Dewey,"  he  wrote,  "had  every  qualification  for  a 
great  preacher."  6 

Gordon  Hall  (1808),  a  man  of  singular  attractive- 

1  Hallock,  Life  of  Justin  Edwards,  18.       2  Sprague,  Annals,  n,  579. 
8  Bartol,  The  Preacher,  the  Singer  and  the  Doer,  3.  4  Ibid.,  4. 

5  Autobiography  and  Letters  of  Orville  Dewey,  148.  fl  Ibid.,  358. 

75 


WILLIAMS  COLLEGE 

ness  and  ability,  spent  the  brief  years  of  his  active  life 
as  a  missionary  in  India.  A  laborer  on  his  father's 
farm  in  Tolland,  Massachusetts,  until  the  age  of  sev- 
enteen, he  then  began  to  prepare  for  college  and  en- 
tered the  Sophomore  class.  President  Fitch,  who  lis- 
tened while  a  tutor  examined  him  orally  for  admission, 
remarked,  "That  young  man  has  not  studied  the 
languages  like  a  parrot,  but  has  got  hold  of  their  very 
radix"] 1  and  he  easily  surpassed  all  his  classmates  in 
scholarship.  An  intimate  friend  of  Samuel  J.  Mills  in 
college  and  theological  seminary,  he  came  to  the  con- 
clusion at  an  early  period  that  his  field  lay  in  pagan 
lands.  Unquestionably  he  might  have  had  a  distin- 
guished career  as  a  preacher.  "  No,  I  must  not  settle 
in  any  parish  in  Christendom/'  he  said.  "  O,  there  will 
be  left  those  whose  health  or  pre-engagements  require 
them  to  stay  at  home;  but  I  can  sleep  on  the  ground, 
can  endure  hunger  and  hardship  —  God  calls  me  to 
the  heathen."  2  And  this  splendid  physical  vitality 
made  it  possible  for  him  to  bear  burdens  of  toil  im- 
possible for  most  men.  "I  ...  am  able  to  labor  hard," 
he  wrote  in  November,  1815,  —  "about  sixteen  hours 
from  the  twenty-four."  3  After  fourteen  years  of 
heroic  and  successful  work  he  fell  a  victim  to  cholera. 
The  best  scholar  in  the  class  of  1809  was  Samuel 
Austin  Talcott  and  the  poorest  Samuel  John  Mills. 
Talcott  pronounced  the  valedictory  under  circum- 
stances that  had  not  happened  before  and  probably 
will  not  happen  again.  A  most  attractive  and  promis- 
ing man,  an  admirable  writer  and  eloquent  speaker, 
he  unfortunately  contracted  during  his  college  course 

1  Bardwell,  Memoir  of  Gordon  Hall,  14.      2  Ibid.,  249.     3  Ibid.,  117. 


THE  BEGINNINGS  OF  THE  COLLEGE 

gross  habits  of  intemperance.  Classmates  besought 
him  to  suspend  these  habits  at  least  on  Commence- 
ment Day.  Their  exhortations  accomplished  little, 
since,  not  long  before  his  turn  to  speak  would  come, 
they  discovered  "he  was  n't  in  the  church  and  found 
him  asleep  in  the  Old  Mansion  House.  They  woke 
him  and  ...  he  got  up,  dashed  his  head  in  a  bowl  of 
water,  straightened  out  his  hair,  started  for  the  church 
and  went  upon  the  stage.  ...  He  wandered  from  his 
prepared  address,  but  gave  a  valedictory  that  was 
never  equalled  in  the  old  church. "  1 

The  scholarship  of  Samuel  John  Mills,  a  native  of 
Torrington,  Connecticut,  son  of  the  Congregational 
minister  in  that  town,  was  so  desperately  poor  that 
the  faculty  did  not  allow  him  to  take  part  in  the  grad- 
uating exercises  of  his  class.  It  was  a  case,  not  of 
intellectual  deficiency,  but  of  preoccupation.  The 
cause  which  absorbed  him  and  subordinated  every 
other  interest  was  then  comparatively  new  in  the 
American  world  —  the  cause  of  foreign  missions.  A 
mature  young  man  twenty-two  years  old,  he  went  to 
Williamstown  in  the  spring  of  1806  to  qualify  himself 
for  service  in  that  field.  The  curriculum  and  the  class- 
room were  matters  of  minor  importance.  Finding  no 
missionary  interest  among  the  students  at  Williams 
he  set  about  the  rather  unpromising  task  of  creating 
one. 

The  first  organized  effort  in  support  of  the  propa- 
ganda was  a  series  of  open-air  prayer  meetings  in  the 
summer  of  1806  —  prayer  meetings  so  quietly  if  not 
furtively  conducted  that  the  great  majority  of  the 
1  Danforth  (1846),  Boyhood  Reminiscences,  112. 
77 


WILLIAMS  COLLEGE 

students  had  no  knowledge  of  their  existence.1  The 
Rev.  Dr.  Richard  Salter  Storrs,  Sr.,  a  prominent  mem- 
ber of  the  class  of  1807,  wrote  in  1840,  that  he 
never  heard  of  them  until  after  his  graduation.2  The 
obscurities  resting  upon  one  of  them,  now  known  as 
the  "  Haystack  Prayer  Meeting1'  and  the  most  fa- 
mous event  in  the  early  history  of  the  college,  were  not 
cleared  up  for  almost  half  a  century.  It  had  long  been 
understood  that  such  a  conference  was  held  and  that 
it  led  to  the  formation  of  the  American  Board  of  Com- 
missioners for  Foreign  Missions,  but  a  full  account 
of  it,  the  details  of  place  and  circumstance,  were  not 
recovered  until  1854  when  Byram  Green  (1808),  the 
only  survivor  of  the  five  men  in  attendance,  —  Mills 
died  in  1818,  James  Richards  in  1822,  Harvey  Loomis 
in  1825,  and  Francis  Le  Barron  Robbins  in  1850,  — 
visited  Williamstown  and  put  on  record  the  lost 
history. 

"You  request  a  statement  of  facts,"  Mr.  Green 
wrote  Albert  Hopkins  in  1854,  "in  relation  to  the 
prayer  meeting  which  was  held  under  the  haystack  by 
some  students  of  Williams  College  in  July  or  August, 
1806.  That  prayer  meeting  becomes  interesting  to 
the  Christian  community,  because  it  was  then  and 
there  proposed  to  send  the  Gospel  to  the  pagans  of 
Asia  and  to  the  disciples  of  Mohammed.  The  stack 
of  hay  stood  northerly  from  the  West  College,  near  a 
maple  grove,  in  a  field  that  was  then  called  Sloan's 
meadow.  .  .  . 

1  Rev.  Chauncey  Eddy,  MS.  letter,  April  13,  1885,  Williams  College 
Library. 

2  MS.  letter,  Williams  College  Library. 

78 


THE  BEGINNINGS  OF  THE  COLLEGE 

"The  afternoon  was  oppressively  warm.  .  .  .  We 
went  first  to  the  grove  .  .  .  but  a  dark  cloud  was  rising 
in  the  west  and  it  soon  began  to  thunder  and  lighten 
and  we  left  the  grove  and  went  under  the  hay- 
stack. .  .  . 

"The  subject  of  conversation  under  the  stack  be- 
fore and  during  the  shower,  was  the  moral  darkness  of 
Asia.  Mills  proposed  to  send  the  Gospel  to  that  .  .  . 
heathen  land ;  and  said  that  we  could  do  it  if  we  would. 
We  were  all  agreed  and  delighted  with  the  idea  except 
Loomis,  who  contended  that  it  was  premature;  .  .  . 
that  Christian  armies  must  subdue  the  country  before 
the  Gospel  could  be  sent  to  the  Turks  and  Arabs.  In 
reply,  it  was  said  .  .  .  that  if  the  Christian  public  was 
willing  and  active  the  work  would  be  done;  that  on 
this  subject  the  Roman  adage  would  be  true,  Vox 
populi  vox  dei.  'Come,1  said  Mills,  'let  us  make  it  a 
subject  of  prayer  under  the  haystack,  while  the  .  .  . 
clouds  are  going  and  the  clear  sky  is  coming.' 

"  We  all  prayed  .  .  .  except  Loomis,  Mills  made  the 
last  prayer  and  was  in  some  degree  enthusiastic;  he 
prayed  that  God  would  strike  down  the  arm,  with  the 
red  artillery  of  heaven,  that  should  be  raised  against  a 
herald  of  the  cross.  We  then  sang  one  stanza.  It  was 
as  follows:  — 

"Let  all  the  heathen  writers  join 

To  form  one  perfect  book: 
Great  God,  if  once  compared  with  thine, 
How  mean  their  writings  look!"  l 

Since  forty-eight  years  intervened   between   the 

1  Byram  Green,  MS.  letter,  August  22,  1854,  Williams  College  Li- 
brary. 

79 


WILLIAMS  COLLEGE 

making  and  the  writing  of  this  history,  the  trust- 
worthiness of  Mr.  Green's  memory  was  called  in  ques- 
tion, but  he  insisted  that  no  event,  however  recent, 
could  be  clearer  or  more  unmistakable  in  his  recollec- 
tion. ''The  rooms  occupied  by  Mills  and  Loomis, 
Bartlett  and  myself,"  he  wrote  in  1857,  "the  heat  of 
the  day,  .  .  .  the  shower  that  drove  us  from  the  grove 
to  the  haystack,  the  small  number  who  attended  the 
meeting,  —  there  being  no  one  present  from  East 
College,  —  walking  together  from  the  stack  to  West 
College,  are  all  circumstances  which  appear  fresh  and 
plain  to  my  mind."  1 

The  second  step  in  this  missionary  propaganda, 
though  less  striking  and  picturesque  than  the  first, 
was  scarcely  less  important  —  the  organization  of  a 
secret  fraternity  called  "The  Brethren"  in  the  au- 
tumn of  1808.  This  fraternity,  the  constitution  and 
records  of  which  were  written  in  cipher,  served  as  an 
auxiliary  and  rallying-point  in  prosecuting  the  work. 
Mills  and  four  of  his  friends  —  Ezra  Fisk,  James  Rich- 
ards, John  Seward,  and  Luther  Rice  —  were  the  char- 
ter members  of  it.  When  Mills  entered  Andover  The- 
ological Seminary  in  the  spring  of  1810  he  took  the 
fraternity  with  him,  and  it  survived  the  transplanting 
sixty  years.  The  members  of  this  Williams- Andover 
institution,  not  content  with  exhorting  others,  pro- 
posed to  go  to  pagan  lands  themselves. 

A  third  step  was  the  memorial  signed  by  Mills  and 
three  other  Andover  students  —  Adoniram  Judson, 
Samuel  Nott,  Jr.,  and  Samuel  Newell  —  to  the  Gen- 

1  Byram  Green,  MS.  letter,  February  15,  1857,  Williams  College 
Library. 

80 


THE  BEGINNINGS  OF  THE  COLLEGE 

eral  Association  of  Massachusetts  which  met  at  Brad- 
ford in  June,  1810,  soliciting  advice  in  regard  to  their 
' 'attempting  a  mission  to  the  heathen."  1  The  me- 
morial resulted  in  the  organization,  a  year  and  a  half 
later,  of  the  American  Board,  which  then  entered 
definitely  upon  the  work  of  christianizing  the  pagan 
world  by  ordaining  five  young  men  at  Salem,  Feb- 
ruary 6,  1812,  and  sending  them  forth  as  its  repre- 
sentatives, among  whom  for  some  reason  Mills  was 
not  included. 

It  would  be  a  mistake  to  suppose  that  nobody  had 
given  serious  thought  to  conditions  existing  in  the 
pagan  world  before  the  day  of  the  haystack  prayer 
meeting.  Mills  and  his  associates  focussed  a  scattered, 
unrelated  interest  already  existing,  and  made  it 
available  for  a  great  humanitarian  and  evangelizing 
movement. 

But  Mills,  with  all  his  interest  in  the  foreign  work, 
was  by  no  means  indifferent  to  the  claims  of  the  home 
field.  He  made  two  Western  tours,  one  of  them  in 
1812-13  and  the  other  in  1814-15,  and  they  were  re- 
markable achievements.  They  involved  several  thou- 
sand miles  of  travel,  for  his  itinerary  extended  from 
Lake  Erie  to  the  Gulf  of  Mexico  —  a  vast  region 
which  seemed  to  Mills  as  the  valley  of  the  shadow  of 
death.  In  these  expeditions  he  struggled  with  bridge- 
less  creeks,  dense  cane-brakes,  wretched  fare,  and  the 
thousand  hardships  of  pioneer  life,  as  well  as  with  the 
difficulties  incident  to  the  establishment  of  Bible  soci- 
eties and  the  distribution  of  tracts.  He  preached  in 
every  sort  of  place  —  in  public  halls,  schoolhouses, 
1  Strong,  The  Story  of  the  American  Board,  5. 
81 


WILLIAMS  COLLEGE 

and  out  of  doors.  On  his  second  tour  he  reached  New 
Orleans  just  after  the  defeat  of  the  British  by  General 
Jackson.  The  town  was  full  of  soldiers,  and  he  found 
in  the  camps  and  hospitals  abundant  opportunities 
for  service  of  which  he  eagerly  availed  himself.  One 
direct  and  tangible  result  of  these  missionary  expe- 
ditions was  the  organization  of  a  national  Bible 
society. 

The  pagans  of  Asia  figured  in  Mills*  arguing  and 
praying  under  the  haystack.  He  never  saw  that  con- 
tinent, but  he  did  visit  the  western  coast  of  Africa  as 
the  representative  of  the  American  Colonization  So- 
ciety which  proposed  to  establish  there  a  republic  of 
free  negroes.  Accompanied  by  the  Rev.  Ebenezer 
Burgess,  lately  professor  in  the  University  of  Ver- 
mont, Mills  sailed,  November  16,  1817.  "We  go,"  he 
wrote,  "  to  lay  the  foundation  of  a  free  and  independ- 
ent empire  on  the  coast  of  poor,  degraded  Africa." 
The  toil  and  exposure  of  the  expedition  proved  fatal 
to  him  and  he  died  on  the  homeward  voyage,  June 
16,  1818,  —  twelve  years  after  the  haystack  prayer 
meeting. 

At  the  Commencement  of  1861,  in  an  address  be- 
fore the  alumni,  the  Rev.  Dr.  Emerson  Davis,  vice- 
president  of  the  college,  spoke  of  the  greater  fame  of 
Mills  compared  with  that  of  Gordon  Hall,  his  asso- 
ciate at  Williamstown  and  Andover,  as  a  strange 
irony  of  fate.  In  his  opinion  the  latter  —  attractive 
in  personality,  a  brilliant  scholar,  an  effective  speaker, 
and  passionately  devoted  to  the  cause  of  missions  — 
was  by  far  the  more  noticeable  man.  The  puzzled 
vice-president  may  have  been  right  in  his  contention, 

82 


THE  BEGINNINGS  OF  THE  COLLEGE 

yet  it  does  not  follow  that  the  work  of  Mills  has  been 
overvalued.  No  man  of  his  day  knew  the  signs  of  the 
times  better  than  he  —  had  a  clearer,  more  urgent 
vision  of  the  opportunities  of  the  Church  in  foreign 
lands,  in  the  slums  of  cities  and  in  the  newer  parts 
of  the  country.  And  with  this  faculty  of  spiritual 
insight  there  was  associated  a  positive  genius  for  ini- 
tiative and  organization,  for  procuring  the  best  as- 
sociates and  helpers  in  the  prosecution  of  his  great 
religious  enterprises.  Therefore,  the  influence  of  this 
quiet,  unobtrusive  man,  without  popular  gifts,  who 
never  thought  of  himself,  has  gone  to  the  ends  of  the 
earth.1 

Of  the  two  hundred  and  thirty  young  men  who  en- 
tered Williams  in  the  period  of  1793-1815  but  did  not 
graduate,  one  was  the  Rev.  Edwin  Wells  Dwight, 
pastor  for  many  years  of  the  Congregational  Church 
in  the  Berkshire  town  of  Richmond.  A  classmate  of 
Mills,  and  belonging  to  his  little  band  of  intimates,  he 
usually  attended  the  open-air  prayer  meetings  which 
they  held  in  the  summer  of  1806,  but  missed  the  only 

1  It  ought  to  be  said  that  he  made  a  profound  impression  on  some 
of  his  fellow  students.  "Samuel  J.  Mills  ...  is  here,"  wrote  one  of 
them  —  Timothy  Woodbridge  —  from  Andover  Theological  Seminary, 
March  20,  1810,  "and  is  my  room-mate.  If  I  read  him  aright,  he  is  an 
extraordinary  man."  (Autobiography  of  a  Blind  Minister,  80.) 

A  year  later  the  Rev.  Jeremiah  Hallock  of  West  Simsbury,  Connecti- 
cut, made  the  following  entry  in  his  diary:  — 

"May  iyth  [1811].  To-day  Mr.  Samuel  John  Mills,  Jun.  candidate, 
preached  for  us.  His  first  sermon  was  on  depravity  —  his  second  on 
giving  all  to  Christ.  O  Lord,  make  me  thankful  for  thy  mercy  to  thy 
servant  Mills  in  giving  him  such  a  son.  .  .  .  May  my  heart  rejoice  in  the 
good  of  others,  and  O  wilt  thou  remember  my  poor  Jeremiah!"  (Life 
of  the  Rev.  Jeremiah  Hallock,  103.)  This  "poor  Jeremiah"  became  a 
distinguished  lawyer.  There  was  nothing  the  matter  with  him  except 
that  he  declined  to  become  a  clergyman.  Hence  his  father's  tears. 


WILLIAMS  COLLEGE 

one  the  world  knows  anything  about.  In  his  Senior 
year  he  left  Williams  and  entered  Yale.  At  New 
Haven  he  fell  in  with  Henry  Obookiah,  a  waif  from 
Hawaii,  seventeen  or  eighteen  years  old,  and  under- 
took his  education.  The  young  pagan  made  good 
progress  and  soon  announced  that  he  would  return  to 
his  native  land  on  a  somewhat  aggressive  theological 
mission  —  "Owhyhee  gods!  they  wood;  .  .  .  me  go 
home,  put  in  a  fire,  burn  'em  up.  .  .  .  We  make  'em. 
Our  God,  he  make  us." 

The  rather  surprising  success  of  this  experiment  led 
to  the  opening,  at  Cornwall,  Connecticut,  in  May, 
1817,  of  a  school  to  train  pagan  youth,  who  might 
come  to  America,  for  religious  work  in  their  native 
lands.  Mr.  Dwight  was  the  first  principal  of  this 
school  and  held  the  position  until  May,  1818,  when 
there  were  twenty-three  students  in  the  institution 
who  spoke  seven  different  native  languages.  Henry 
Obookiah  died  during  the  preceding  February,  and 
Lyman  Beecher  preached  the  sermon  at  his  funeral. 
11  Those  feet,"  he  said,  "  will  not  traverse  the  shores  of 
Owhyhee,  that  tongue  will  not  publish  salvation  to 
those  for  whom  it  uttered  so  many  supplications.  We 
behold  the  end  of  his  race  and  bury  with  his  dust  in 
the  grave  all  our  high-raised  hopes  of  his  future  activ- 
ity in  the  cause  of  Christ."  1  But  the  good  that  Henry 
Obookiah  did  was  not  interred  with  his  bones  at 
Cornwall.  A  memoir  of  him,  written  by  Mr.  Dwight 

1  Memoirs  of  Henry  Obookiah,  Elizabeth,  New  Jersey,  1819.  This 
edition  contains  besides  the  memoir  and  Dr.  Beecher's  sermon  an 
inauguration  sermon  by  the  Rev.  Joseph  Harvey,  an  inauguration 
address  by  the  Rev.  Herman  Daggett,  and  an  inaugural  address  by  the 
Hon.  John  Treadwell. 


THE  BEGINNINGS  OF  THE  COLLEGE 

and  published  in  1818,  sold,  it  is  said,  to  the  extent 
of  twelve  editions  and  fifty  thousand  copies.  This 
book,  so  directly  and  intimately  associated  with  the 
haystack  prayer  meeting,  was  an  important  factor 
in  the  movement  that  led  to  the  christianization  of 
Hawaii.1 

Another  student  of  this  time,  William  Cullen  Bry- 
ant, did  not  stay  to  graduate.  Born  at  Cummington, 
a  little,  out-of-the  way  hill  town  in  Western  Massa- 
chusetts, he  entered  the  Sophomore  class  in  the  au- 
tumn of  1810  —  a  slender,  shapely,  unaffected,  and 
attractive  youth.  He  was  the  first,  and  so  far  as  ap- 
pears the  last,  candidate  for  admission  to  Williams 
who  had  won  distinction  as  a  poet.  In  1808  —  then 
a  boy  of  thirteen  —  he  published  "The  Embargo/'  a 
philippic  against  President  Jefferson  and  his  policies, 
which  attracted  immediate  and  at  first  incredulous 
attention.  Interest  in  this  precocious  poem  has  con- 
tinued to  such  a  degree  that  in  191 1  a  copy  of  the  first 
edition  was  sold  at  auction  for  $3350.  Nor  was  "The 
Embargo"  Bryant's  only  pre-college  poem.  A  second 
edition  of  it  in  1809  contained  several  additional 

1  Memoirs  of  Henry  Obookiah,  Revised  Edition,  1832. 

R.  H.  W.  Dwight,  Springfield  Republican,  January  23,  1910. 

"  In  the  breezy  morning  we  went  ashore  [at  Kealakekua  Bay]  and 
visited  the  ruined  temple  of  the  last  god  Lono.  The  high  chief  cook 
of  this  temple  —  the  priest  who  presided  over  it  and  roasted  the  human 
sacrifices  —  was  uncle  to  Obookiah,  and  at  one  time  that  youth  was  an 
apprentice  under  him.  .  .  .  And  this  Obookiah  was  the  very  same  sensi- 
tive savage  who  sat  down  on  the  church  steps  and  wept  because  his 
people  did  not  have  the  Bible.  That  incident  has  been  very  elabo- 
rately painted  in  many  a  charming  Sunday-school  book  —  aye,  and 
told  so  pathetically  and  tenderly  that  I  have  cried  over  it  in  Sun- 
day-school myself."  (Mark  Twain,  Roughing  It,  Hilcrest  Edition,  vm, 
279.) 

85 


WILLIAMS  COLLEGE 

pieces,  among  which  was  a  rather  neatly  turned  ode  of 
Horace:  — 

"The  man  whose  life,  devoid  of  guile, 
Is  free  from  crimes  and  passions  vile 
Needs  not  the  aid  of  Moorish  art, 
The  bow,  the  shaft  and  venomed  dart."  l 

This  boy,  whose  precocity  of  genius  was  hardly  less 
remarkable  than  that  of  Cowley  or  Pope  or  Chatter- 
ton,  put  on  no  airs  when  he  came  to  Williamstown. 
"He  was  entirely  modest  and  unobtrusive  in  his  de- 
portment, "  said  a  classmate.2 

Relatively  few  details  of  Bryant's  brief  undergrad- 
uate career  have  been  preserved.  We  know  that  he 
had  little  sympathy  with  the  more  turbulent  side  of 
college  life,  such  as  appeared  in  the  rough  horse-play 
called  "gamutizing  Freshmen,"  an  early  synonym  for 
hazing;  that  he  found  the  debating  societies  inter- 
esting; and  that,  in  addition  to  preparation  for  the 
classroom,  he  managed  to  do  considerable  reading  in 
general  literature.  On  one  occasion,  it  is  said,  he  at- 
tempted to  declaim  a  selection  from  Irving's  "  Knick- 
erbocker, "  but  as  he  proceeded  the  humor  of  it  threw 
him  into  convulsions  of  laughter  and  he  was  obliged 
to  sit  down  with  his  speech  half  unspoken  —  to  the 
amusement  of  his  classmates  and  the  disgust  of  the 
tutor. 

At  Williamstown  Bryant  did  not  find  himself  in  a 
community  wholly  indifferent  to  the  muses.  A  recent 
graduate3  had  written  an  ambitious  and  creditable 

1  Lib.,  i,  Carm.  xxn. 

2  Quoted  in  Perry's  Williamstown  and  Williams  College,  338. 
8  Aaron  W.  Leland  (1808). 

86 


THE  BEGINNINGS  OF  THE  COLLEGE 

tragedy  in  blank  verse,  —  " The  Fatal  Error,"  — 
which  was  presented  before  the  college,  and  poems 
appeared  not  infrequently  upon  the  commencement 
programmes.  Two  translations  —  "A  Version  of  a 
Fragment  of  Simonides,"  and  an  "  Ode  of  Anacreon  " 
—  and  "  Descriptio  Gulielmopolis,"  seem  to  comprise 
the  sum  of  Bryant's  Williamstown  verse.  The  "  De- 
scriptio," a  boyish  satire  upon  the  college  and  town 
and  not  to  be  taken  very  seriously,  failed  to  get  into 
print  until  1891,  thirteen  years  after  the  author's 
death.1  It  was  a  sort  of  mocking  valediction  when,  at 
the  conclusion  of  a  seven  months'  residence,  he  left 
the  Berkshire  college  with  the  expectation  of  entering 
Yale  —  an  expectation  that  failed.  This  cynical,  rail- 
ing mood  passed.  "  I  regretted  all  my  life  afterwards," 
he  wrote  in  his  " Autobiography,"  "that  I  had  not 
remained  at  Williams."  2  Bryant's  relations  with  the 
college  subsequently  became  very  friendly.  He  was 
restored  by  vote  of  the  Trustees  to  membership  in  his 
class  and  wrote  a  poem  for  the  fiftieth  anniversary  of 
it  in  1863,  reviewing  the  half-century  "since  a  gallant, 
youthful  company  went  from  these  learned  shades." 
Sometimes  he  attended  the  annual  dinners  of  the 
alumni.  Governor  Emory  Washburn,  president  of  the 
Boston  Association,  asked  him  to  contribute  a  few 
lines  of  verse  for  the  meeting,  New  Year's  Day,  1868. 
In  reply  he  said  that  he  had  come  to  the  December  of 
life  and  that  he  had  been  ever  ill  at  verse  of  the  occa- 
sional sort.  "You  write  as  if  I  had  nothing  to  do,  in 
fulfilling  your  request,  but  to  go  out  and  gather,  under 

1  The  Christian  Union,  June  25,  1891. 

2  Goodwin,  Life  of  Bryant,  I,  36. 

8? 


WILLIAMS  COLLEGE 

the  hedges  and  by  the  brooks,  a  bouquet  of  flowers 
that  spring  spontaneously,  and  throw  them  upon  your 
table.  If  I  were  to  try,  what  would  you  say  if  it  proved 
to  be  only  a  little  bundle  of  dead  stalks  and  withered 
leaves,  which  my  dim  sight  had  mistaken  for  fresh 
green  sprays  and  blooms?"  1  In  1869  he  was  elected 
president  of  the  alumni  and  made  a  happy  speech  at 
Commencement  dinner.  As  an  after-piece  of  this 
pleasant  anniversary  he  sent  President  Hopkins  five 
hundred  dollars  for  the  uses  of  the  college.  "Strange 
times  we  live  in,"  wrote  the  latter  in  acknowledging 
the  gift,  "when  poets  possess  money  and  patronize 
literature  and  make  better  speeches  than  anybody 
else."  2  A  newspaper  correspondent  caught  a  glimpse 
of  the  poet  in  these  Williamstown  days  of  1869:  "The 
venerable  Bryant,  looking  with  his  long  white  hair 
and  beard  like  Homer  come  to  earth  again,  as  he 
chatted  quietly  with  some  friend,  while  curious  groups 
scrutinized  and  noted.  Though  upwards  of  seventy 
years  old  the  author  of  '  Thanatopsis '  is  straight  as  an 
arrow  and  his  step  as  light  as  a  boy's."  3 

Mr.  Bryant  attended  Commencement  for  the  last 
time  in  1876  and  made  a  speech  somewhat  reminis- 
cential  at  the  alumni  dinner.  Since  his  student  days, 
he  remarked,  great  changes  had  taken  place.  The 
faculty  consisted  of  three  tutors  for  Freshmen  and 
Sophomores,  a  professor  for  Juniors,  and  President 
Fitch.  Stiff  rows  of  poplar  trees  connected  the  main 
buildings  —  a  great  contrast  to  the  spreading  elms 

1  Boston  Daily  Advertiser,  January  2,  1868. 

2  Godwin,  Life  of  Bryant,  n,  270. 

3  Springfield  Republican,  June  25,  1869. 

88 


THE  BEGINNINGS  OF  THE  COLLEGE 

and  maples  of  to-day.  He  dwelt  with  enthusiasm  on 
the  beauty  of  the  town  and  the  mountains  that  sur- 
round it.  One  of  the  graduating  orations  in  which  the 
speaker  considered  the  problem  of  life  and  found  it  a 
baffling  mystery  interested  him.  But,  he  continued, 
we  need  no  other  solvent  of  doubt  than  that  supplied 
by  nature,  and  then  recited  a  poem  written  by  John 
Mason  Good:  — 

"Not  worlds  on  worlds  in  phalanx  deep 

Need  we  to  tell  us  God  is  here; 
The  Daisy  fresh  from  Winter's  sleep 
Tells  of  his  hand  in  lines  as  clear."  1 

When  he  sat  down,  the  Rev.  Dr.  Prime  asked  him  if 
there  were  any  truth  in  the  tradition  that  he  wrote 
" Thanatopsis "  while  a  student  in  the  College.  "Mr. 
Bryant  said  that  entering  Williams  in  the  Sophomore 
class  of  1810,  he  left  in  May,  1811,  expecting  to  go  to 
Yale,  but  as  his  father's  means  did  not  permit  it,  he 
returned  to  his  home  in  Cummington,  and  there  one 
afternoon,  after  wandering  through  the  woods,  he 
rested  beneath  a  group  of  majestic  forest  trees  and 
wrote  'Thanatopsis."'  2 

At  the  meeting  of  the  Trustees  May  2,  1815,  Eben- 
ezer  Fitch  "signified  his  intention  to  resign"  3  at  the 
close  of  the  college  year  and  was  given  leave  of  ab- 
sence until  Commencement.  To  him  the  break-up 

1  Gregory,  Life  of  J.  M.  Good,  381. 

2  Springfield  Weekly  Republican,  June  30,  1876.   "  My  poem  Thana- 
topsis .  .  .  was  then  a  fragment  beginning  with  the  half  line,  '  Yet  a  few 
days  and  thee,'  —  and  ending  with  the  half  line,  'And  make  their  bed 
with  thee.'  I  am  not  quite  certain  whether  this  was  in  my  eighteenth  or 
nineteenth  year,  probably  the  latter."  (Bryant,  Letter  to  the  Rev.  Cal- 
vin Durfee,  March  19,  1869.  Obituary  Record  1877-78.) 

3  Records  of  the  Trustees,  May  2,  1815. 


WILLIAMS  COLLEGE 

would  seem  to  have  been  unexpected.  "That  spring 
(1814)  at  Philadelphia,"  said  the  Rev.  Dr.  Griffin, 
"  I  met  the  president,  the  revered  tutor  of  my  youth, 
and  found  him  cheerful  and  happy  and  with  no  other 
thought  than  to  lay  his  bones  in  this  delightful 
valley."  1 

In  the  next  twelve  months  the  whole  aspect  of  the 
situation  changed.  For  that  unfriendly  transforma- 
tion the  declining  fortunes  of  the  institution  fur- 
nished at  least  the  occasion.  The  four  classes  on  the 
ground  at  the  beginning  of  the  college  year  1814-15 
graduated  sixty-eight  men,  while  the  four  classes  a 
decade  earlier  graduated  one  hundred  and  eleven.  It 
was  a  serious  decadence  and  led  friends  of  the  college 
to  believe  that  it  could  not  be  kept  alive  in  Williams- 
town,  and  should,  therefore,  be  removed  to  some  more 
promising  location.  Though  not  absolutely  essential 
to  the  success  of  such  a  project,  the  resignation  of  the 
President  would  without  much  question  facilitate  it. 
But  the  processes,  whatever  they  may  have  been,  by 
which  it  came  about  disturbed  and  angered  the  com- 
munity. 

"  It  was  with  grief  and  indignation,"  wrote  "  Berk- 
shire," prominent  among  the  warring  pamphleteers 
of  1819-20,  "the  public  saw  an  old  and  faithful  serv- 
ant, with  a  numerous  family,  driven  from  an  insti- 
tution which  he  had  fostered  to  meet  the  buffets  of 
the  world  and  the  caprices  of  fortune.  .  .  .  Age,  pru- 
dent and  timid,  draws  its  fragile,  weather-beaten  bark 
within  shore.  .  .  .  But  he  was  pitilessly  pushed  to  sea 
to  find  his  grave  in  the  deep,  or  to  be  stranded  on 

1  Griffin,  Sermon  at  the  Dedication  of  the  New  Chapel,  12. 
90 


THE  BEGINNINGS  OF  THE  COLLEGE 

some  unknown,  inhospitable  shore. "  l  The  rhetorical 
" Berkshire"  may  have  done  the  Trustees  scant  jus- 
tice. Yet,  though  they  did  not  perhaps  exactly  "push 
him  to  sea,"  their  tears  were  few  when  he  took  passage 
from  Williamstown.  But  after  his  resignation  had 
been  secured,  they  did  not  fail  to  treat  the  retiring 
President  handsomely.  They  praised  his  work  —  four 
complimentary  adjectives  were  found  to  be  necessary 
in  describing  it,  "long,  laborious,  able,  and  useful"  2 
—  and  presented  him  a  purse  of  twenty-two  hundred 
dollars,  a  grant  amounting  to  "more  than  one  eighth 
of  our  productive  funds."  3  The  money  and  the  four 
adjectives  assuaged  his  griefs  so  effectually  that  he 
went  away  from  Williamstown  "  perfectly  satisfied."  4 
He  removed  to  West  Bloomfield,  New  York,  where 
for  twelve  years  he  was  pastor  of  a  small  Presbyterian 
church.  But  the  early  mood  of  content  did  not  last 
long.  The  ex-President  could  never  make  both  ends 
meet  financially  and  the  twenty-two  hundred  dollars 
failed  to  afford  any  permanent  relief.  When  after  a 
little  funds  ran  low  and  he  found  that  he  "must  be 
indebted  to  the  charity  of  friends  for  the  education  of 
a  son,"  he  came  to  feel  that  he  had  not  been  "very 
generously  or  even  justly  treated,"  5  and  requested 
"an  additional  allowance,"  which  the  Trustees  re- 
fused. Though  one  may  not  be  insensible  to  the  pity 
of  it  all,  in  the  straitened  financial  condition  of  the 
college,  they  could  hardly  have  done  otherwise. 

1  Pittsfield  Sun,  August  u,  1819. 

2  Records  of  the  Trustees,  September  5,  1815. 

3  Ibid.,  September  2,  1818.  4  Ibid.,  September  2,  1815. 

6  President  Fitch,  MS.  letter,  October  5,  1816,  Williams  College 
Library. 

91 


WILLIAMS  COLLEGE 

President  Fitch  died  at  West  Bloomfield,  March  21, 
1833,  and  was  buried  in  the  local  cemetery.  Some 
report  having  reached  the  Williams  alumni  at  their 
annual  meeting  in  1844  that  his  grave  was  in  a  neg- 
lected condition,  they  appointed  a  committee  of  in- 
vestigation. If  this  committee  ever  made  a  report, 
nothing  came  of  it.  The  matter  dropped  out  of  sight 
until  1860,  when  an  undergraduate  who  lived  in  West 
Bloomfield  printed  a  communication  on  the  subject  in 
the  " Quarterly."  "  I  found  the  grave,"  he  wrote,  "in 
a  low,  damp  corner  of  the  churchyard  where  the  rank 
weeds  and  swamp-grass  vie  with  each  other  in  impi- 
ous luxuriance  and  marked  by  a  broken  slab.  .  .  . 
Even  now  decay  has  partially  effaced  the  lettering, 
.  .  .  and  in  a  few  short  years  the  crumbling  stone  will 
mingle  its  dust  with  the  marsh  in  which  it  stands."  1 
There  was  a  further  delay  of  four  years  and  then  the 
remains  of  the  first  President  were  rescued  from  the 
West  Bloomfield  marsh,  removed  to  Williamstown, 
and  interred  in  the  college  cemetery,  where  a  suitable 
monument  had  been  erected  to  his  memory.  Immedi- 
ately after  prayers  on  the  evening  of  July  5,  1864,  the 
faculty,  three  or  four  Trustees,  a  few  graduates  and 
friends  of  the  college  gathered  about  the  new  grave. 
Judge  Henry  W.  Bishop  (1817),  of  Lenox,  made  an 
appropriate  and  touching  address.  "Among  those 
here  ...  I  am  the  only  one,"  he  said,  "who  was  a 
member  of  the  college  during  Dr.  Fitch's  presidency. 
These  relics  before  us  bring  back  ...  in  full  force  the 
sentiments  of  reverence,  which  the  living  presence 
inspired.  I  see  his  dignified  form  again,  his  grave 

1  A.  C.  Brown  (1861),  in  Williams  Quarterly,  July,  1860. 
92 


THE  BEGINNINGS  OF  THE  COLLEGE 

and  benignant  features,  his  courteous  demeanor,  his 
happy  smile,  and  feel  again  the  veneration  which  the 
lapse  of  half  a  century  has  not  extinguished.  ...  I 
have  always  regarded  Dr.  Fitch  as  the  real  founder 
of  this  institution.  ...  He  came  here  early  —  a  ripe 
scholar  .  .  .  and  eminently  qualified  to  teach.  He  was 
thoroughly  equal  to  impart  all  that  an  education  then 
thought  liberal  required.  .  .  .  May  he  not,  therefore, 
be  permitted  to  share,  without  impairing,  the  just 
fame  of  him  whose  munificence  is  acknowledged  by 
the  name  with  which  the  institution  has  been  chris- 
tened." l 

Thus,  on  a  summer's  evening,  thirty-one  years 
after  his  death,  the  mortal  remains  of  President  Fitch 
were  interred  in  the  cemetery  of  Williams  College. 
He  brought  to  the  service  of  the  institution  at  the  crit- 
ical stage  of  its  beginnings,  not  exceptional  gifts  of 
intellectual  brilliancy  or  executive  vigor,  but  a  sound, 
ample  scholarship  —  a  mild,  courtly,  gracious  dis- 
pensation of  good  sense. 

1  Pittsfield  Sun,  July  20,  1864. 


CHAPTER  IV 

WILLIAMSTOWN  OR  ELSEWHERE? 

MAY  8,1815,  Professor  Chester  Dewey  wrote  a  former 
associate  that  the  Trustees  of  the  college,  who  met 
Tuesday  night  of  the  preceding  week,  "held  a  session 
till  twelve  o'clock,"  which  they  resumed  "  before 
breakfast  on  Wednesday/1  continued  all  that  day, 
and  finished  Thursday  morning.  "They  took  hold  in 
earnest  and  labored  like  men."  l  The  matter  which 
disturbed  the  Trustees  so  profoundly  was  a  resolution 
introduced  by  the  Rev.  Dr.  Theophilus  Packard,  of 
Shelburne,  and  finally  adopted,  that  a  committee  of 
six  be  appointed  to  consider  the  question  of  removing 
the  college  from  Williamstown.  In  this  revolutionary 
proposition  the  master  spirit  seems  to  have  been  the 
shrewd,  persistent,  dogmatic,  intellectual  divine  who 
offered  the  resolution.  Yet  though  the  leadership 
naturally  fell  into  his  hands,  he  did  not  originate  the 
scheme.  That  distinction  belongs  to  Timothy  Wood- 
bridge,  who  happened  to  visit  Williamstown  in  com- 
pany with  his  brother  Joseph,  then  a  Trustee  of  the 
college,  some  time  during  the  year  1814.  As  they  were 
returning  from  this  visit,  the  former,  in  the  course  of 
a  talk  about  the  institution  and  its  prospects,  said 
he  thought  that  the  location  was  unfortunate  and 
should  be  abandoned  for  some  site  like  Amherst  or 
Northampton,  near  the  middle  of  the  State.  "These 
1  Dewey,  MS.  letter,  Williams  College  Library. 
94 


WILLIAMSTOWN  OR  ELSEWHERE? 

casual  remarks/'  he  continued,  "made  a  deep  im- 
pression upon  my  brother,  and  after  reflecting  upon 
the  subject  he  said  to  me, '  I  shall  take  up  the  matter/ 
...  At  a  meeting  of  the  Board  of  Trustees  .  .  .  soon 
after  he  opened  the  subject  fully.  The  affair  .  .  . 
escaped  from  the  secrecy  of  the  Board  and  spread  like 
wild-fire."  J 

The  appointment  of  the  committee  of  six  was  nat- 
urally regarded  as  a  pretty  certain  indication  that 
the  institution  would  not  remain  at  Williamstown,  and 
a  lively  competition  to  secure  it  sprang  up  in  Western 
Massachusetts.  At  the  next  meeting  of  the  corpora- 
tion, September  5,  communications  were  received 
from  four  towns  in  Hampshire  and  two  in  Berkshire 
—  all  anxious  to  secure  the  college  and  pledging  cer- 
tain sums  of  money  on  that  condition.2  Stockbridge 
with  a  tentative  subscription  of  $13,000,  and  North- 
ampton with  one  of  $12,500,  were  the  leading  com- 
petitors. 

These  towns  and  all  the  others  took  one  point  for 
granted  —  the  college  was  on  the  downward  road  to 
extinction.  What  has  Williamstown,  it  was  urged, 
"that  can  attract  the  attention  of  the  public  or  that 
can  render  a  term  of  four  years'  residence  agreeable  or 
pleasant?  .  .  .  Many  scholars  .  .  .  having  entered  the 
institution  .  .  .  soon  became  sick  of  the  place  and  ob- 
tained dismissions."  3  This  discouraged  view  of  the 
situation  was  widely  prevalent.  "  I  perfectly  agree  in 
sentiment,"  wrote  a  correspondent  of  the  "Hamp- 

1  Woodbridge,  Autobiography  of  a  Blind  Preacher,  158. 
*  "X,"  in  Berkshire  Star,  January  21,  1819. 
8  Hampshire  Gazette,  July  5,  1815. 

95 


WILLIAMS  COLLEGE 

shire  Gazette"  a  month  earlier,  "with  many  gentle- 
men of  both  political  parties  in  this  country  that  it  is 
expedient  not  only  to  rescue  this  seminary  of  learning 
from  a  natural  death  for  want  of  support,  but  to 
transplant  it  to  the  soil  of  the  old  county  of  Hamp- 
shire." 1  Another  interesting  campaign  document  — 
"An  Appeal  to  the  Reverend  Clergy"  —  discussed 
the  question  of  "furnishings"  proper  for  a  college 
town.  "Above  all,"  according  to  the  "Appeal,"  "it 
ought  not  to  be  in  want  of  gentlemen  in  easy  circum- 
stances, of  leisure  and  literary  taste,  of  refined  man- 
ners, of  moral  and  religious  habits  and  of  respectabil- 
ity at  home  and  abroad."  Evidently  the  pamphleteer 
meant  to  convey  the  impression  that  the  Williams- 
town  of  1 8 1 5  was  ' '  in  want  of  gentlemen  * '  of  this  type. 

The  competing  towns  also  pushed  their  interests  by 
holding  public  meetings.  Of  these  the  largest  and 
most  important  assembled  at  Northampton  June  24, 
when  the  question  of  removal  is  said  to  have  been 
"dispassionately  considered  and  ably  discussed." 
The  conclusions,  however,  of  this  highly  impartial 
assembly  were  never  in  doubt. 

But  the  mass  meetings,  the  provisional  subscrip- 
tions, the  appeals,  and  the  letters  to  newspapers  all 
proved  to  be  an  idle  rub-a-dub,  since  the  committee  of 
six  in  their  report,  which  the  Trustees  adopted,  de- 
clared the  proposed  removal  inexpedient  "at  the 
present  time  and  under  existing  circumstances."  2 
What  considerations  led  the  committee  to  this  con- 
clusion they  neglected  to  explain.  The  facts  appear  to 

1  Hampshire  Gazette,  June  7,  1815. 

2  Records  of  the  Trustees,  September  5,  1815. 

96 


WILLIAMSTOWN  OR  ELSEWHERE? 

have  been  that  "some  of  the  most  respectable  gentle- 
men in  Berkshire  pledged  themselves  to  raise  the  col- 
lege from  its  present  degraded  condition  if  they  might 
have  opportunity/*  and  the  corporation  concluded  to 
give  the  institution  further  days  of  grace  "in  the 
place  where  it  had  stood  since  its  establishment. "  1 

The  report  of  the  committee  of  six  put  an  end  to 
all  official  agitation  for  removal  in  the  neighboring 
towns  as  well  as  in  the  Board  of  Trustees.  Yet  it  is 
said  to  have  been  "a  notorious  fact"  2  that  public 
interest  in  the  subject  continued.  Nor  did  the  college 
community  lapse  into  indifference.  July  14,  1816, 
ten  months  after  the  motion  of  the  Rev.  Dr.  Theophi- 
lus  Packard  had  been  defeated,  the  question,  "Ought 
Williams  College  to  be  removed  from  its  present  loca- 
tion?" was  debated  in  the  Philotechnian  Society  and 
decided,  after  a  spirited  discussion  with  but  one  dis- 
senting vote,  in  the  affirmative.3 

The  selection  of  a  new  President,  which  occurred 
at  the  stormy  May  meeting  of  the  Trustees  in  1815, 
seems  to  have  been  a  wholly  peaceable  affair,  un- 
vexed  by  discussion  or  difference  of  opinion,  and  their 
first  choice  was  Professor  Leonard  Woods,  of  Andover 
Theological  Seminary.  To  provide  against  the  con- 
tingency that  he  might  decline  the  offer,  —  which  he 
proceeded  to  do  without  much  delay,  —  they  elected 
as  a  second  choice  Professor  Zephaniah  Swift  Moore, 
of  Dartmouth  College.  The  Rev.  Dr.  Theophilus 
Packard  visited  Hanover  to  confer  with  the  President 

1  "  Plain  Dealing,"  in  Hampshire  Gazette,  November  10,  1818. 

2  Hampshire  Gazette,  October  27,  1818. 
*  Records  of  the  Philotechnian  Society. 

97 


WILLIAMS  COLLEGE 

elect,  who  accepted  the  position.  What  report  in  re- 
gard to  the  condition  and  prospects  of  the  college  this 
fierce,  anti-Williamstown  partisan  would  make,  may 
be  readily  imagined. 

Born  in  Palmer  November  20,  1770,  President 
Moore  lived  there  until  he  was  eight  years  old,  when 
he  removed  to  Wilmington,  Vermont,  a  raw,  paltry, 
half -inaccessible  mountain  town,  where  his  father 
undertook  the  rather  unpromising  business  of  farm- 
ing. In  this  business,  with  its  exacting  toil  and  meagre 
opportunity,  Zephaniah  was  his  chief  assistant  until 
he  reached  the  age  of  eighteen.  Then  he  began  to  fit 
for  college  at  Clio  Hall  in  the  neighboring  town  of 
Bennington.1  Entering  Dartmouth  he  graduated 
with  honor  in  1793  —  three  years  earlier  than  his 
friend  Theophilus  Packard.  In  1798,  after  theological 
studies  lasting  two  years,  he  became  pastor  of  the 
church  at  Leicester,  Massachusetts.  His  success  in 
the  pulpit  was  quite  beyond  the  ordinary.  While  not 
exactly  rhetorical,  much  less  sensational,  at  times  his 
preaching  was  singularly  impressive.  A  sermon  of  his 
at  the  ordination  of  the  Rev.  Absalom  Peters  in  Ben- 
nington seemed,  to  one  auditor  at  least,  like  "a  new 
revelation  of  the  oracles  of  God."  2  He  remained  at 
Leicester  until  1811,  when  he  accepted  a  call  to  the 
chair  of  Latin  and  Greek  in  Dartmouth  College.  The 
finale  of  his  pastorate  is  a  significant  commentary  on 
the  quality  of  it.  When  he  left  town  his  parishioners 
assembled  and  many  of  them  accompanied  him  sev- 
eral miles  on  the  way  to  his  new  field  of  labor.3 

1  Sprague,  Annals,  I,  642.  *  Vermont  Gazette,  July  II,  1820. 

8  Historical  and  Genealogical  Register,  I,  136. 


ZEPHANIAH  SWIFT  MOORE 
I8I5-I82I 


WILLIAMSTOWN  OR  ELSEWHERE? 

President  Moore  was  inaugurated  September  3, 
1815.  His  address  on  this  occasion  —  a  clear,  sound, 
well-built  discourse  in  which  the  studies  which  a  col- 
lege curriculum  should  offer  were  considered  and 
appraised  1  —  pleased  the  Trustees,  who  thought  it 
was  "  elegant "  2  and  requested  a  copy  for  publication, 
but  for  some  reason  it  never  got  into  print.  There 
was  no  reference  in  this  discourse  to  the  questions  that 
had  been  so  seriously  troubling  Williamstown  and  all 
Western  Massachusetts. 

The  college  year  1815-16  began  with  a  new  Presi- 
dent and  also  with  a  new  professor  —  Ebenezer  Kel- 
logg, a  graduate  of  Yale  in  1810  and  salutatorian  of  his 
class,  who  was  inducted  into  the  recently  established 
chair  of  Ancient  Languages.  Only  fifty-eight  students 
were  in  attendance  —  a  great  falling-off  from  the 
maximum  figures  —  one  hundred  and  fifteen  —  in 
the  preceding  administration.  Probably  this  omi- 
nous shrinkage  in  registration,  which  alarmed  Wil- 
liamstown, did  not  displease  President  Moore  and  the 
Rev.  Dr.  Theophilus  Packard.  It  lent  a  color  of  plau- 
sibility to  their  contention  that  the  institution  was  in 
the  earlier  stages  of  a  hopeless  collapse. 

President  Moore  practically  accepted  conditions  as 
he  found  them  and  attempted  little  in  the  line  of  re- 
form or  innovation.  There  was,  it  is  true,  a  revision 
of  the  formidable  college  laws  of  1795,  which  fills 
thirty-seven  pages  in  the  "Records  of  the  Trustees." 
While  the  code  may  have  been  modified  in  details, 
the  old  spirit  and  temper  remained  —  a  fact  made 

1  Moore,  MS.  Sermon,  Williams  College  Library. 

2  Records  of  the  Trustees,  September  5,  1815, 

99 


WILLIAMS  COLLEGE 

unmistakably  clear  by  the  provision  that  some  mem- 
ber of  the  faculty  must  visit  the  rooms  of  students 
twice  every  day  during  study  hours.1 

The  only  other  change  of  any  importance  was  in 
reference  to  the  requirements  for  admission.  Caesar's 
Commentaries,  Graeca  Minora,  and  Cummins'  Geog- 
raphy were  added  to  the  list  of  them.  With  the  excep- 
tion of  a  rather  indefinite  scheme  for  occasional  classes 
in  chemistry,  law,  and  natural  science,  and  a  four- 
years'  course  of  theological  lectures  by  the  President, 
which  he  did  not  find  time  to  offer,  there  appears  to 
have  been  little  change  in  the  curriculum. 

That  the  ordinary  functions  and  processes  of  the 
college  should  suffer  in  the  interval  of  suspended  hos- 
tilities over  the  question  of  removal  was  inevitable. 
As  a  matter  of  fact  only  one  event  of  exceptional  im- 
portance occurred  in  the  classrooms  of  1815-21,  and 
that  event  —  the  lectures  of  Amos  Eaton  (1799)  on 
Natural  History — was  in  a  sense  accidental.  He  had 
been  out  of  college  eighteen  years,  and  had  devoted, 
nominally  at  least,  sixteen  of  them  to  the  study  and 
practice  of  law.  But  after  "  struggling  .  .  .  against 
difficulties  almost  '  insurmountable/ "  2  he  aban- 
doned his  profession,  removed  to  New  Haven,  and 
put  himself  "under  the  direction  of  Professor  Silli- 
man  in  the  year  1816.  .  .  .  Having  received  an  invita- 
tion to  aid  in  the  introduction  of  Natural  Sciences  at 
Williams  College  in  Mass.  I  commenced  a  course  of 
lectures  at  that  institution  in  March  1817.  ...  Such 

1  Records  of  the  Trustees,  September  5,  1815. 
*  Eaton,  Index  to  the  Geology  of  the  Northern  States,  Second  Edition, 
Dedication. 

100 


WILLIAMSTOWN  OR  ELSEWHERE? 

was  the  zeal  at  this  institution  that  an  uncontrollable 
enthusiasm  for  Natural  History  took  possession  of 
every  mind;  and  other  departments  of  learning  were 
for  the  time  crowded  out  of  College.  The  .  .  .  author- 
ities allowed  twelve  students  each  day  (72  per  week) 
to  devote  their  whole  time  to  the  collection  of  min- 
erals, plants  &c  in  lieu  of  all  other  exercises "  1  "I 
have  been  told  by  students  of  that  time,"  Albert  Hop- 
kins wrote,  "that  it  would  be  difficult  to  conceive  of 
the  enthusiasm  which  then  prevailed  in  the  pursuit 
of  science."  2 

To  prepare  for  the  second  course,  which  dealt  with 
the  flora  of  the  Northern  States,  the  students  —  no 
publisher  being  willing  to  take  the  risk  —  printed  five 
hundred  copies  of  "A  Manual  of  Botany,"  compiled 
from  the  lecturer 's  "manuscript  system"  —  an  en- 
terprise without  precedent  in  the  history  of  American 
colleges.  This  "Manual"  contained  an  enthusiastic 
letter  of  appreciation  addressed  to  Mr.  Eaton  and 
signed  by  all  the  undergraduates  with  the  exception 
of  one  Sophomore  and  three  Freshmen.3 

Amos  Eaton  devoted  the  years  immediately  suc- 
ceeding his  great  successes  at  Williamstown  to  writing 
books  and  to  the  lyceum  platform.  Of  his  numerous 
series  of  lectures  the  course  most  talked  about  and 
most  important  in  practical  results  seems  to  have  been 
the  one  delivered  before  the  Legislature  of  New  York. 

1  Eaton,  Geological  Text  Book,  Second  Edition,  16. 

2  Williams  Quarterly,  June,  1864,  p.  261. 

8  Ballard,  Amos  Eaton,  265.  July  19,  1817,  Mr.  Tutor  Charles  Jen- 
kins made  the  following  entry  in  his  Daily  Notices,  etc.:  "Paid  Prof. 
Dewey  $5.00  for  Mr.  Eaton,  subscription  to  lectures  on  Natural  His- 
tory." 

IOI 


WILLIAMS  COLLEGE 

"In  the  winter  of  1819,  through  the  exertions  of  Dr. 
Breck,  seconded  by  Gov.  Clinton  ...  I  was  employed 
in  giving  a  course  of  lectures  on  Geology  and  Chem- 
istry with  their  applications  to  agriculture  ...  in  the 
rooms  of  the  Society  of  Arts  in  the  Capitol."  1  This 
course  of  lectures  awakened  profound  interest  and 
created  in  some  large  measure  the  sentiment  that  led 
ultimately  to  the  publication  of  "The  Natural  His- 
tory of  New  York." 

No  one  among  the  American  pioneers  in  science 
approached  Amos  Eaton  in  popular  exposition,  in 
ability  to  awaken  enthusiasm,  whether  he  addressed 
a  country  lyceum,  the  students  of  Williams  College, 
or  the  Senators  and  Representatives  of  the  State  of 
New  York.2 

The  armistice  in  the  war  against  Williamstown 
came  to  an  end  in  1818.  At  a  meeting  of  the  Trustees 
August  6,  the  Rev.  Dr.  Theophilus  Packard  intro- 
duced a  resolution  to  the  effect  that  Williams  College 
be  removed  to  Amherst  and  united  with  a  projected 
literary  institution  in  that  town.  This  unexpected 
resolution  created  consternation  among  "the  very 
respectable  men  of  Berkshire/'  who  had  undertaken 
to  put  the  college  upon  its  feet  and  thought  they  were 
succeeding  in  the  enterprise.  "A  fair  contract," 
wrote  one  of  them  in  1818,  "fully  understood  .  .  . 
was  entered  into.  .  .  .  The  most  unequivocal  evidence 
is  before  the  public  that  these  efforts  and  sacrifices 
were  not  in  vain.  The  number  of  students  was  grad- 

1  Eaton,  Geological  Note  Book,  Second  Edition,  18. 

2  From  1824  to  1842,  the  year  of  his  death,  Amos  Eaton  was  "  Senior 
Professor"  at  the  Rensselaer  Polytechnic  Institute,  Troy,  New  York. 

IO2 


WILLIAMSTOWN  OR  ELSEWHERE? 

ually  increasing,  the  reputation  of  the  institution  was 
rising  beyond  the  expectation  of  its  most  sanguine 
friends  .  .  .  when  the  Amherst  project  burst  upon  the 
college. "  1 

Though  President  Moore  favored  the  "  Amherst 
Project,"  the  Trustees  promptly  rejected  it.  While 
the  rebuff  scarcely  pleased  the  Rev.  Dr.  Theophilus 
Packard,  he  intimated  that  it  was  only  an  incident  in 
the  campaign,  regrettable,  perhaps,  but  of  no  serious 
importance,  and  that  turned  out  to  be  the  case.  At  a 
special  meeting  of  the  Trustees  November  10,  a  reso- 
lution was  adopted  by  a  vote  of  nine  to  three  2  author- 
izing the  removal  of  the  college  from  Williamstown 
provided  the  Legislature  should  sanction  the  project 
and  sufficient  funds  be  secured  to  finance  it.  This 
resolution  differed  from  the  earlier  one  in  leaving  the 
selection  of  the  new  site  to  a  disinterested  committee, 
which  was  authorized  "to  view  the  towns  of  Hamp- 
shire County  and  determine  the  place  to  which  the 
college  shall  be  removed."  3 

The  Trustees  shrewdly  put  this  part  of  the  business 
into  the  hands  of  distinguished  gentlemen  who  lent 
dignity  and  importance  to  the  transaction  —  James 
Kent,  author  of  the  famous  "Commentaries  on 
American  Law";  Nathaniel  Smith,  a  judge  of  the 
Supreme  Court  of  Connecticut,  and  the  Rev.  Dr. 
Seth  Payson,  of  Rindge,  New  Hampshire. 

At  the  November  meeting  two  events  occurred,  no 

1  "Plain  Dealing,"  in  Hampshire  Gazette,  November  10,  1818. 

2  The  Trustees  who  voted  in  the  negative  were  Daniel  Noble  (1796), 
of  Williamstown,  Israel  Jones,  of  North  Adams,  and  Levi  Glezen 
(1798),  of  Lenox. 

8  Records  of  the  Trustees,  November  10,  1818. 

103 


WILLIAMS  COLLEGE 

record  of  which  appears  in  the  minutes  of  the  Trus- 
tees. One  of  them  was  the  arrival  of  a  committee 
from  Amherst  with  Noah  Webster,  the  lexicographer, 
for  chairman.  This  committee  wished  to  renew  the 
overtures  which  had  been  rather  unceremoniously  re- 
jected in  the  preceding  August,  and  especially  to  urge 
serious  consideration  of  the  resolutions  of  a  conven- 
tion held  at  Amherst  September  29  and  attended  by 
delegates  —  thirty-seven  of  them  were  clergymen  — 
from  many  towns  in  the  counties  of  Hampshire, 
Franklin,  and  Hampden.  And  a  single  question  only 
came  before  the  convention  —  the  question  of  es- 
tablishing a  college  in  Hampshire  County.  After  an 
exciting  and  prolonged  debate  the  conclusion  was 
reached  that  such  an  institution  should  be  estab- 
lished —  in  the  town  of  Amherst.  The  other  unre- 
corded event  was  the  presence  of  a  committee  ap- 
pointed "  at  a  meeting  of  a  number  of  gentlemen  from 
various  parts  of  Old  Hampden  ...  in  Northampton 
on  the  twenty-second  day  of  October"  and  directed 
to  collect  such  facts  as  might  be  helpful  in  the  matter 
of  relocating  Williams  and  to  lay  them  before  the 
Trustees  of  that  institution.1  But  neither  Noah 
Webster  and  his  associates,  nor  the  gentlemen  from 
Northampton,  accomplished  anything.  What  should 
be  done  with  the  college,  if  it  did  not  remain  in  Wil- 
liamstown,  was  a  question  which  James  Kent,  Na- 
thaniel Swift,  and  Seth  Payson  would  take  under 
advisement  and  in  due  time  decide.  Probably  the 
nine  Trustees  who  advocated  removal  were  divided  — 

1  Hampshire  Gazette,  October  22,  1818.   Franklin  Herald,  November 
3,  1818. 

104 


WILLIAMSTOWN  OR  ELSEWHERE? 

the  majority  favoring  Northampton.  If  we  may  trust 
the  evidence  of  a  crude  cartoon  that  some  unknown 
artist  exhibited  in  Williamstown  soon  after  the  mem- 
orable loth  of  November,  President  Moore  and  the 
Rev.  Dr.  Theophilus  Packard  were  partisans  of  Am- 
herst.  The  cartoon  attracted  the  attention  of  a  casual 
newspaper  correspondent. 

"As  I  was  travelling  not  long  since,"  he  wrote,  "in 
the  county  of  Berkshire],  I  called  at  a  town  in  the 
north  part  of  the  county,  where  I  saw  a  very  ingeni- 
ous caricature  painting.  .  .  .  On  the  canvas  you  have  a 
correct  view  of  the  college  buildings.  At  one  end  .  .  . 
a  lazy-looking  man  in  the  dress  of  a  clergyman,  said  to 
represent  Parson  P[ackard]  is  mounted  on  a  small,  lean 
pony  .  .  .  hitched  to  the  building,  whipping  and  spur- 
ring the  poor  beast  to  draw.  ...  At  a  little  distance  is  a 
large,  portly,  smooth-faced  gentleman  in  clerical  dress 
[President  Moore]  with  apparently  two  faces,  from  one 
of  which  goes  a  label  pointing  toward  the  Rev.  Mr. 
Pfackard]  on  which  is  written  in  capitals,  'Whip 
up,  Mr.  P[ackard].  Now  or  Never.'  From  the  other 
face  proceeds  another  label,  pointing  toward  a  small 
collection  of  decent-looking  people  ...  *  I  feel  very 
friendly  to  the  college.  I  think  our  experiment  will 
prove  successful.' 

"In  the  background  .  .  .  scarcely  visible  are  one  or 
two  sable-looking  gentlemen  .  .  .  diligently  at  work 
with  crowbars,  heaving  at  the  building.  In  the  fore- 
front of  the  picture  is  seen  a  small  squad  of  little  fel- 
lows with  their  faces  toward  A[mherst],  each  one  with 
a  little  sack.  From  the  foremost  proceeds  a  label  .  .  . 
'  How  far  is  it  to  A[mherst]?  .  .  .  Also  a  label  from  one 

105 


WILLIAMS  COLLEGE 

of  the  faces  of  the  smooth-faced  gentlemen,  pointing 
toward  the  squad  of  boys  ...  Be  still  and  contented, 
boys,  the  college  will  soon  be  at  A[mherst].'"  1 

This  cartoon  is  probably  the  earliest  in  the  reper- 
toire of  Williams  undergraduates.  Whatever  may 
be  thought  of  its  merits  at  the  present  day,  some 
contemporaries  felt  that  the  traveller  ought  not  to 
have  sent  an  account  of  it  to  the  newspapers.  In  their 
opinion  he  showed  bad  taste,  if  he  did  not  violate  the 
obligations  of  hospitality,  by  giving  publicity  to  an 
incident  which  one  might  laugh  over  in  private,  but 
ought  not  to  bruit  abroad.2 

The  dormant  inter-town  rivalry  to  secure  the  col- 
lege now  broke  out  afresh  and  with  no  loss  of  inten- 
sity. Most  of  the  previous  competitors  entered  the 
reawakened  contest,  and  one  community  —  the  town 
of  Greenfield  —  that  had  been  indifferent  in  1815. 
This  newcomer  easily  outdid  its  rivals  in  hortatory 
and  oratorical  fervor.  "When  we  consider  that  the 
future  usefulness  of  such  an  institution  .  .  .  depends 
in  a  great  measure  on  being  located  in  the  right 
place,"  it  was  urged,  "and  when  we  look  at  the  several 
places  that  have  been  proposed,  and  at  the  same  time, 
as  far  as  in  us  lies,  look  with  a  single  eye  to  the  best 
good  of  the  present  and  all  future  generations,  we 
cannot  avoid  concluding  that  Greenfield  is  the  most 
available  location  for  the  college."  3  At  a  town- 
meeting  January  28,  1819,  a  committee  of  forty-one 
members  was  appointed  to  raise  funds  —  a  commit- 

1  "  A.B.,"  in  Pittsfield  Sun,  December  30,  1818. 

*  "  Decus,"  in  Pittsfield  Sun,  June  20,  1819. 

*  Franklin  Herald,  January  12.  1819. 

106 


WILLIAMSTOWN  OR  ELSEWHERE? 

tee  representing  not  only  Greenfield,  but  Deerfield, 
Shelburne,  Colerain,  Leyden,  Bernardston,  Gill,  and 
Montague.  This  committee  issued  a  second  circular, 
pitched  on  a  higher  rhetorical  key  than  even  the  first 
and  addressed  "To  all  who  are  in  favor  of  having 
Williams  College  located  at  Greenfield."  "If  you  do 
what  you  have  the  power,  ability  and  opportunity  of 
doing,"  said  these  fluent  promoters,  "there  is  good 
reason  to  expect  that  the  college  may  be  located 
where  you  think  it  ought  to  be.  ...  If  you  suffer  the 
present  opportunity  to  pass  away  unimproved,  it  is 
very  certain  you  will  never  have  another.  ...  Be  wise 
for  society  —  be  wise  for  yourselves,  your  children 
and  your  children's  children  and  all  the  people  shall 
say  Amen."  1  In  a  few  days  the  subscriptions 
amounted  to  eight  thousand  dollars.  If  Greenfield 
had  secured  the  coveted  "seminary  of  learning,"  the 
name  of  it  would  have  been  changed  to  Washington 
College.2 

In  the  spring  of  1819  the  committee  commissioned 
"to  view  the  towns  of  Hampshire  County"  set  out  on 
their  tour  of  investigation.  Apparently  they  made  a 
careful  survey  of  the  field,  visiting  the  competing 
communities  and  listening  to  whatever  statements 
might  be  presented.  Their  report,  stiff  with  the  dialect 
of  legal  phraseology,  was  as  follows :  — 

"To  all  to  whom  these  presents  shall  come  or  may 
concern  —  Know  Ye  that  we,  the  subscribers,  having 
by  a  resolution  of  the  President  and  Trustees  of  Wil- 
liams College  been  appointed  a  committee  to  view 

1  Franklin  Herald,  February  2,  1819. 

2  Thompson,  History  of  Greenfield,  I,  310. 

107 


WILLIAMS  COLLEGE 

the  towns  in  the  old  County  of  Hampshire  and  Com- 
monwealth of  Massachusetts  as  far  as  might  be 
proper  and  to  determine  and  fix  the  place  to  which  the 
said  college  should  be  removed,  and  having  taken  upon 
ourselves  the  said  trust  .  .  .  and  having  duly  consid- 
ered the  subject  Do  determine  and  declare  that  the 
place  to  which  the  said  college  ought  to  be  removed 
is  the  town  of  Northampton.  ....,.-:/'•** 

June  22  —  the  day  after  receiving  the  report  — 
the  Trustees  issued  an  address  to  the  public  in  which 
they  explained  and  defended  their  action.  Williams- 
town,  they  contended,  with  its  inaccessibility,  with 
the  lessening  number  of  students,  with  the  alarming 
shrinkage  of  income,  with  the  disastrous  competition 
lately  sprung  up  in  Vermont  and  New  York,  was  an 
impossible  site,  and  the  college  must  not  be  sacrificed 
to  the  interests  of  that  town.2 

Preliminaries  having  been  settled,  there  was  no 
delay  in  beginning  the  contest.  July  28,  six  days 
after  the  report  of  Messrs.  Kent,  Smith,  and  Payson, 
delegates  from  five  counties  —  Worcester,  Franklin, 
Hampden,  Berkshire,  and  Hampshire  —  met  in  con- 
vention at  Northampton  to  devise  such  measures  as 
might  be  necessary  to  secure  the  removal  of  the  col- 
lege to  that  town.  President  Moore  attended  the 
gathering  and  was  elected  chairman.3 

Some  delay  occurred  in  holding  the  counter,  pro- 
Williamstown  convention.  It  was  not  until  the  6th  of 
October  that  it  assembled  at  Pittsfield,  passed  appro- 

1  Records  of  the  Trustees,  June  22,  1819. 

2  Berkshire  Star,  July  29,  1819. 

1  Hampshire  Gazette,  August  3,  1819. 
108 


WILLIAMSTOWN  OR  ELSEWHERE? 

priate  resolutions,  and  appointed  a  committee  to  fight 
the  Northampton  scheme.  This  committee  presently 
published  a  belligerent  pamphlet  attacking  the  recent 
manifesto  of  the  Trustees. 

In  this  second  stage  of  the  struggle  —  it  was  now 
Northampton  versus  Williamstown  —  the  campaign 
of  discrediting  the  latter  as  a  practicable  site  for  a 
college  was  resumed.  On  that  score,  however,  little  re- 
mained to  be  said  —  the  fields  of  abuse  had  been  care- 
fully gleaned.  Perhaps  one  of  the  scoffers  at  the  town 
may  have  shown  a  trace  of  originality.  He  commis- 
erated the  lot  of  the  Berkshire  alumni  unless  some- 
thing could  be  done  for  them.  "They  will  find  no 
pleasure,"  he  observed,  "in  years  to  come  in  replying 
when  asked  the  place  of  their  education,  'There  was 
once  a  college  called  Williams  .  .  .  where  I  took  my 
degree/  ...  It  is  unkind  and  unjust  ...  to  permit  its 
name  and  its  honors  to  be  lost."  1  The  most  impor- 
tant document,  however,  which  the  Trustees  had  in 
hand,  whatever  may  have  been  the  value  of  friendly 
communications  in  the  newspapers,  was  a  letter  from 
the  late  President  Dwight,  of  Yale  College,  in  which 
he  emphatically  commended  their  plans.  "At  Wil- 
liamstown," he  said,  "the  college  was  put  under  a 
bushel."  2 

One  essential  condition  of  removing  the  college  to 
Northampton  was  that  .a  fund  of  fifty  thousand  dol- 
lars should  be  raised  by  citizens  of  that  town  to  under- 

1  Hampshire  Gazette,  August  10,  1819. 

2  This  letter  was  written  June  23, 1815,  and  printed  in  the  Hampshire 
Gazette,  January  5,  1819.    "No  man  of  the  age,"  said  the  editor,  "  was 
more  competent  to  settle  the  question  upon  which  he  offered  his  opin- 
ion." 

109 


WILLIAMS  COLLEGE 

write  the  enterprise.1  November  2,  1819,  the  com- 
mittee appointed  to  examine  the  subscriptions,  having 
made  a  favorable  report,  the  Trustees  voted  that  "it  is 
expedient  to  petition  the  legislature  for  the  removal 
of  Williams  College  ...  to  Northampton."2  Also, 
President  Moore  was  directed  to  sound  the  authori- 
ties at  Amherst  in  regard  to  the  possibility  of  their 
joining  in  the  movement,  but  they  would  not  listen  to 
his  overtures. 

January  17,  1820,  the  formal  papers  in  the  case  — 
the  petition  of  President  Moore  and  nine  Trustees, 
the  remonstrance  of  the  three  dissenting  Trustees  and 
the  town  of  Williamstown  —  reached  the  Legislature 
and  were  referred  to  a  joint  committee  of  the  Senate 
and  House  of  Representatives.  After  holding  pro- 
tracted sessions  and  attending  to  "all  that  either 
party  had  seen  fit  to  offer,"  the  committee  concluded 
that  "it  is  neither  lawful  nor  expedient"  to  remove 
the  college  to  Northampton.  The  discussion  of  their 
report  began  in  the  Senate  February  5,  was  resumed 
on  the  8th,  and  concluded  with  the  adoption  of  it  by  a 
vote  of  thirty  to  five.  At  least  one  vigorous  and  tell- 
ing speech  —  the  pro- Williamstown  speech  of  Josiah 
Quincy  —  enlivened  the  discussion.  In  the  course  of 
a  violent  attack  upon  the  nine  Trustees  who  favored 
removal,  he  drew  a  realistic  picture  of  the  local  desola- 
tion that  would  follow  if  they  should  succeed  in  their 
campaign.  "My  honorable  friend  from  Hampshire 
[Mr.  Lyman],"  he  said,  "treated  very  lightly  the 
effects  of  removal.  He  forgot  that  though  it  might 

1  Records  of  the  Trustees,  November  10,  1818. 
*  Ibid.,  November  2,  1819. 

no 


WILLIAMSTOWN  OR  ELSEWHERE? 

be  sport  to  Northampton  it  was  death  to  Williams- 
town.  He  spoke  as  though  it  were  a  simple  agricul- 
tural operation.  .  .  .  Then  he  told  us  what  a  soil  that 
of  Northampton  is,  rich,  strong  .  .  .  the  delight  of  all 
eyes,  the  desire  of  all  hearts.  The  great  rivers  are 
there  and  the  great  post-road.  .  .  .  The  place  was 
adorned  with  all  the  beauties  of  Eden.  .  .  .  The  only 
thing  lacking  was  —  a  tree  of  knowledge.  This  they 
asked  permission  to  transplant.  ...  I  then  in  imagi- 
nation recrossed  the  mountains  to  look,  if  I  may  be 
allowed  the  figure,  at  the  hole  out  of  which  this  great 
tree  was  taken.  I  see  its  severed  fibres,  its  shattered 
roots,  and  the  people  of  Williamstown  sitting  mourn- 
ing .  .  .  the  pride  of  their  plain  gone!"  l 

The  House  referred  the  joint  report  to  a  committee 
of  the  whole,  which  devoted  three  sessions  to  a  con- 
sideration of  it.  The  contestants  were  fortunate  in 
their  spokesmen  —  Daniel  Noble  (1796)  appearing 
for  Williamstown  and  Elijah  Hunt  Mills  (1797)  for 
Northampton.  To  the  reporter  of  the  "  Daily  Adver- 
tiser" -  probably  Nathan  Hale  (1804)  —  the  speech 
of  the  former  seemed  "  ingenious  and  impressive"  and 
that  of  the  latter  "very  able  and  eloquent."  2  On  the 
last  day  of  the  hearing  debate  continued  until  eve- 
ning, when  the  joint  report  was  adopted  by  a  vote  of 
one  hundred  and  thirty-five  against  twenty-three. 
The  committee  then  arose  and  became  the  House  of 
Representatives,  which  after  an  ineffectual  effort  to 
refer  the  question  to  the  next  Legislature,  adopted  the 
report  in  concurrence  with  the  Senate — the  final  vote 

1  MS.,  Williams  College  Library. 

*  Daily  Advertiser,  February  14,  1820. 

Ill 


WILLIAMS  COLLEGE 

being  one  hundred  and  twenty-seven  in  the  affirma- 
tive and  twenty-four  in  the  negative.1 

Various  phases  of  the  question  were  discussed  in 
the  Boston  newspapers  during  the  progress  of  the  de- 
bate. The  most  important  journalistic  contribution 
to  the  controversy  was  an  anti-Williamstown  edi- 
torial, three  columns  and  a  half  long,  in  the  "Daily 
Advertiser/' written  by  Nathan  Hale  (1804).  "It  is 
with  great  reluctance,"  he  said,  speaking  of  the  report 
of  the  joint  committee,  "that  we  dissent,  .  .  .  and  no 
consideration  but  a  sense  of  duty  to  the  college  would 
induce  us  to  offer  any  reasons  for  an  opposite  opin- 
ion. .  .  .  We  enter  upon  the  subject  with  the  greater 
freedom  because  from  the  rough  experience  of  three 
or  four  years*  residence  at  the  college  in  its  present 
position  we  feel  competent  to  form  a  very  decided  opin- 
ion." The  village,  he  continued,  is  small,  situated  in 

1  Journal  of  the  House  of  Representatives.  Columbian  Centinel,  Febru- 
ary 16,  1820.  While  the  struggle  over  the  removal  of  Williams  was  in 
progress  the  famous  Dartmouth  College  litigation  occurred.  Here  the 
question  turned  upon  the  right  of  the  Legislature  to  revoke  the  charter 
of  the  college,  notwithstanding  the  protests  of  the  Trustees,  and  trans- 
fer its  funds  to  another  institution,  Dartmouth  University.  The  Su- 
preme Court  of  New  Hampshire,  at  the  November  term,  1817,  de- 
cided against  the  Trustees,  who  carried  the  case  to  the  Supreme  Court 
of  the  United  States,  which,  in  a  decision  rendered  February  2,  1819, 
reversed  the  finding  of  the  State  Court.  The  argument  of  Daniel 
Webster,  as  everybody  knows,  won  the  case  for  the  Trustees.  Some 
recently  discovered  correspondence  shows  a  lurking  fear  in  their  minds 
that  he,  single-handed,  might  not  be  equal  to  the  emergencies  of  the 
case!  "We  expect  Mr.  Webster  to  take  charge  of  the  action,"  wrote 
President  Francis  Brown,  of  Dartmouth,  November  15,  1817,  to  Presi- 
dent Kirkland,  of  Harvard,  "  and  should  feel  perfectly  safe  to  entrust 
it  wholly  to  his  management.  But  possibly  he  may  request  an  associate, 
or  not  improbably  it  may  be  thought  expedient  by  our  friends  and  board 
that  another  able  lawyer  should  join  him."  (Charles  Warren,  American 
Law  Review,  September-October,  1912. 

112 


WILLIAMSTOWN  OR  ELSEWHERE? 

a  community  of  farmers  —  "in  a  remote  and  thinly 
populated  corner  of  the  State  and  near  to  a  slightly 
populated  part  of  two  neighboring  States.  .  .  .  Within 
the  distance  of  fifteen  miles  .  .  .  there  is  but  one 
settled  minister  ...  of  liberal  education."  In  regard 
to  a  single  point  Nathan  Hale  hesitated  —  "whether 
the  college  should  not  be  allowed  to  die  a  lingering 
death  where  it  is?"  Removal  seemed  to  him  the 
only  alternative,  unless  "some  extraordinary  aid, 
which  we  have  no  reason  to  hope  for,"  1  should  in- 
tervene. 

The  people  of  Williamstown  won  the  fight,  though 
at  a  heavy  cost.  In  order  to  show  their  faith  by  their 
works  and  to  put  the  college  upon  a  better  finan- 
cial basis,  they  raised  funds  for  it  to  the  amount  of 
$18,186.15  2  —  under  the  circumstances  a  very  large 
sum.  The  leading  spirit  in  their  successful  campaign 
—  the  man  whose  genius  as  organizer,  pamphleteer, 
and  public  speaker  saved  the  day  —  was  their  towns- 
man, Daniel  Noble,  of  the  class  of  1796.  He  died  at 
Portland,  Maine,  whither  he  had  gone  on  business  for 
the  college,  November  22,  1830.  The  next  morning, 
at  the  opening  of  the  session  of  the  Supreme  Court, 
a  member  of  the  local  bar,  who  "for  nearly  twenty 
years  .  .  .  had  the  pleasure  of  his  acquaintance  and 
friendship,"  announced  his  death  in  an  appreciative 
address.3  The  Trustees  in  their  record  of  it  said  that 
he  had  been  "of  vast  service  to  the  college,"  and 

1  Daily  Advertiser,  February  4,  1820. 

2  Trustees'  Gift  Book.    Remarks  on  a  Pamphlet  of  Citizens  of  Berk- 
shire. 

9  American  Advocate,  December  8,  1830. 

113 


WILLIAMS  COLLEGE 

should  be  "held  in  grateful  and  affectionate  remem- 
brance." 1 

Anticipating  an  easy  and  certain  victory,  the  col- 
lapse of  their  campaign  at  Boston  threw  the  Rev.  Dr. 
Theophilus  Packard  and  his  confederates  into  a  very 
sour  mood.  They  denounced  the  report  of  the  com- 
mittee, which  the  Legislature  adopted,  as  partisan 
in  its  statements,  fallacious  in  its  logic,  and  calami- 
tous in  its  consequences.2  The  situation  was  decid- 
edly awkward.  "We  hear  the  enquiry  often  made/' 
wrote  the  editor  of  the  "Hampshire  Gazette,"  "what 
course  will  the  trustees  take?  .  .  .  We  think  there  can 
be  no  doubt  about  it.  At  present  they  are  under  the 
censure  .  .  .  either  of  gross  ignorance  of  the  law  and 
constitution  or  a  wanton  attempt  to  violate  both  .  .  . 
are  under  a  strong  and  sacred  obligation  to  procure  a 
reversal  of  the  attainder  which  has  been  passed  upon 
them."  3  They  attempted  nothing  of  the  sort.  Not 
one  of  them  was  in  any  hurry  to  offer  his  resignation 
—  a  much  simpler  and  more  practicable  matter.  Even 
the  Rev.  Dr.  Theophilus  Packard  remained  in  office 
until  1825. 

In  those  confused  and  uncertain  days,  considerable 
division  of  opinion  prevailed  among  the  undergradu- 
ates. Some  of  them  were  in  sympathy  with  the  pro- 
posed removal,  some  opposed  to  it,  and  others  unde- 
cided. When  it  was  determined  that  the  college 
should  remain  in  Williamstown  the  excitement  sub- 
sided, and  the  crisis  seemed  to  have  been  safely 
weathered. 

1  Records  of  the  Trustees,  September  7,  1831. 

2  Hampshire  Gazette,  August  24, 1819.         '  Ibid.,  February  15, 1820. 

114 


WILLIAMSTOWN  OR  ELSEWHERE? 

The  period  of  quietude  and  recovery  came  to  an 
abrupt  close.  At  morning  prayers,  early  in  the  sum- 
mer of  1821,  President  Moore  announced  that  he  had 
received  and  accepted  an  offer  of  the  presidency  of  the 
Amherst  Collegiate  Institute.1  This  communication, 
which  was  presented  to  the  Trustees  at  their  meeting 
July  17,  "fell  upon  the  students  like  a  thunderbolt."  2 
There  were  about  eighty  in  the  institution,  and  at 
least  half  of  them  proposed  to  leave  Williams  and  go 
to  Amherst.  Alarmed  by  the  critical  state  of  affairs 
the  Trustees  immediately  elected  Professor  Thomas 
Macauley,  of  Union  College,  successor  to  President 
Moore,  and  issued  a  reassuring  address  to  the  public. 
And  one  of  their  number,  the  Rev.  Dr.  Alvan  Hyde, 
of  Lee,  calling  a  meeting  of  the  students,  urged  them 
to  cooperate  with  the  Trustees  in  their  efforts  to  re- 
habilitate the  institution.  All  these  activities  —  the 
address  to  the  public,  the  prompt  election  of  a  new 
President,  and  Dr.  Hyde's  conference  with  the  under- 
graduates —  occurred  at  the  Senior  examination,  six 
weeks  before  Commencement.  For  a  time  the  tonic  of 
this  stir  was  effective  and  a  moderate  degree  of  cheer- 
fulness prevailed  on  the  campus.  But  the  hopeful 
mood  soon  passed.  Professor  Macauley  came  to  Wil- 
liamstown,  looked  about,  and  concluded  to  remain  at 
Union.  Then  the  Trustees  asked  Professor  Chauncey 
A.  Goodrich,  of  Yale,  to  undertake  the  presidency, 
and  he  declined.  It  seems  that  both  of  these  gentle- 
men were  elected  without  being  consulted.  This 
happy-go-lucky  policy,  which  provoked  a  good  deal 

1  President  Moore's  letter  of  acceptance  is  dated  June  12,  1821. 

2  Cooke,  Recollections,  35. 


WILLIAMS  COLLEGE 

of  criticism,  was  abandoned  in  the  third  quest  for  a 
President,  when  there  were  no  premature  announce- 
ments. At  a  special  meeting  of  the  Trustees,  one  of 
their  number,  Thaddeus  Pomeroy,  of  Stockbridge, 
happened  to  mention  the  name  of  the  Rev.  Dr.  Ed- 
ward Dorr  Griffin,  of  Newark,  New  Jersey.  Catching 
at  the  suggestion,  they  instantly  sent  him  to  visit 
Dr.  Griffin  and  offer  him  the  presidency  of  the  college. 
Pomeroy  conducted  his  mission  so  quietly  that  nobody 
got  wind  of  it. 

Meanwhile,  alarming  signs  of  panic  reappeared 
among  the  students.  It  soon  began  to  look  —  such 
was  the  despondency  that  set  in  —  as  if  Commence- 
ment exercises  must  be  abandoned.  At  this  crisis  the 
Seniors  called  a  class  meeting  to  discuss  the  situation 
and  to  settle  the  matter  definitely.  It  was  settled,  and 
by  two  of  their  number,  —  Emerson  Davis  and  Eras- 
tus  Cornelius  Benedict,  —  who  declared  that,  rather 
than  allow  the  anniversary  to  fail,  they  would  perform 
their  own  parts  and  also  those  of  their  classmates.1 
These  two  young  men  saved  the  Commencement  of 
1821,  which,  in  spite  of  all  discouraging  antecedents, 
passed  off  creditably.  President  Moore  presided  with 
grace  and  dignity,  and  a  newspaper  reporter  thought 
that  the  literary  exercises  had  "on  no  occasion  been 
surpassed  in  excellence."  2 

Out  of  the  turmoil  and  confusion  there  arose  one 
new  organization,  suggested  by  a  recent  graduate, 
Emory  Washburn  —  The  Society  of  Alumni,  "for  the 
promotion  of  literature  and  good  fellowship  among 

1  Wells  and  Davis,  Sketches  of  Williams  College,  31. 

2  Vermont  Gazette,  September  13,  1821. 

116 


WILLIAMSTOWN  OR  ELSEWHERE? 

ourselves  and  the  better  to  advance  the  reputation 
and  interest  of  our  Alma  Mater."  1  These  expecta- 
tions have  been  fully  realized,  the  innovation  proving 
so  successful  that  the  whole  college  world  presently 
adopted  it. 

Some  graduates  during  this  brief  and  stormy  ad- 
ministration were  well  known  in  their  day.  Two  of 
them,  members  of  the  class  of  1818,  Ebenezer  Em- 
mons  and  William  Augustus  Porter,  became  profes- 
sors in  the  college.  Another  member  of  that  class  was 
Daniel  Dewey  Barnard,  accomplished  scholar,  lawyer 
of  the  first  rank,  member  of  the  Legislature  of  New 
York  and  of  the  National  House  of  Representatives, 
Minister  Plenipotentiary  of  the  United  States  at 
Berlin,  and  friend  of  Alexander  von  Humboldt. 

Emory  Washburn,  who  graduated  a  year  earlier, 
was  the  last  Whig  Governor  of  Massachusetts,  his 
election  occurring  in  1854,  3ust  before  the  Know- 
Nothing  craze  confounded  all  the  old  political  parties. 
Nominated  "without  his  knowledge  or  anticipation 
while  .  .  .  absent  in  Europe,"  he  first  learned  what 
had  happened  "as  the  steamer  touched  at  Halifax."  2 
When  the  Civil  War  broke  out  —  he  was  then  Bussey 
Professor  of  Law  at  Harvard  and  more  than  threescore 
years  old  —  he  joined  a  company  of  volunteers  and 
"cheerfully  bore  the  fatigue  and  burden  ...  of  mili- 
tary drill."  3 

Three  prominent  alumni  of  the  period  came  from  a 
private  classical  school  in  the  little  village  of  Plain- 
field.  A  year  after  his  settlement  there  in  1792  as 

1  Records  of  the  Society  of  Alumni.   Berkshire  Star,  August  25,  1821. 
8  Mass.  His.  Society,  Proceedings,  xvn,  26.         3  Ibid.,  xvu,  30. 

117 


WILLIAMS  COLLEGE 

pastor  of  the  Congregational  Church,  the  Rev.  Moses 
Hallock,  finding  his  salary  inadequate,  established 
this  school,  maintained  it  until  1824,  and  prepared  for 
college  one  hundred  and  thirty- two  young  men,  of 
whom  fifty  became  clergymen.1  It  was  the  only 
school  that  could  by  any  possibility  be  called  a 
"feeder"  to  the  college.  In  1815  two  of  his  own  sons 
entered  the  Freshman  class.  The  elder,  William 
Allen  Hallock,  valedictorian,  became  the  correspond- 
ing secretary  of  the  American  Tract  Society,  held  that 
office  nearly  half  a  century,  read  all  the  multitudi- 
nous manuscripts  submitted  for  publication,  edited 
the  " Messenger "  and  the  "Child's  Paper,"  and  occa- 
sionally wrote  books,  one  of  which  —  the  "Life  of 
Harlan  Page"  —  had  a  large  circulation. 

The  younger  brother,  Gerard,  not  only  took  a  high 
rank  as  a  scholar,  though  he  fitted  for  college  in  seven 
months,  but  had  the  unique  distinction  of  being 
assigned  a  poem  on  the  Commencement  programme 
of  1819.  Yet  it  was  as  an  editor  rather  than  as  a 
maker  of  verse  that  he  won  distinction.  For  thirty- 
three  years  —  from  1828  to  1861  —  he  conducted  the 
"New  York  Journal  of  Commerce"  and  made  it  the 
leading  financial  organ  of  the  country.  This  long  and 
distinguished  newspaper  career,  quite  as  noteworthy 
in  its  way  as  that  of  his  better  known  contemporaries, 
Horace  Greeley  and  James  Gordon  Bennett,  came  to 
a  sudden  and  involuntary  close.  A  conservative, 
fully  persuaded  that  Civil  War  meant  disunion,  he 

1  Yale,  Life  of  Rev.  Moses  Hallock,  312.  Dyer,  History  of  Plainfield, 
36.  Old  John  Brown  and  William  Cullen  Bryant  were  pupils  in  the 
Plainfield  School. 


WILLIAMSTOWN  OR  ELSEWHERE? 

deplored  coercive  measures,  at  least  until  the  re- 
sources of  diplomacy  had  been  exhausted.  "  Why  not 
negotiate,"  he  asked,  though  Fort  Sumter  had  been 
fired  upon,  "and  fight  if  we  must  afterwards?"  Talk 
of  this  sort  exasperated  the  public  which  was  in  no 
mood  for  compromise.  A  grand  jury  presented  the 
"Journal,"  and  the  Postmaster-General  excluded  it 
from  the  mails.  Though  he  had  never  been  disloyal  in 
word  or  deed,  nothing  remained  for  Gerard  Hallock 
but  to  retire  from  the  editorship.  "He  could  surren- 
der his  property  but  not  his  principles."  x 

Jonas  King,  whose  struggles  for  an  education  as 
well  as  his  later  history  were  exceptional,  belongs  to 
this  time.  A  farmer's  son,  born  in  Hawley,  a  little  hill 
town  adjoining  Plainfield  in  Western  Massachusetts, 
he  "learned  English  grammar  while  hoeing  corn,  read 
the  twelve  books  of  Virgil's  ALneid  in  fifty-eight  days 
and  the  New  Testament  in  six  weeks."  2  Though 
these  inadequate  days  and  weeks  were  supplemented 
by  a  brief  attendance  at  Moses  Hallock's  school,  the 
period  of  preparation  for  college  was  short  and  inter- 
mittent. With  this  very  informal  preparation  he  visited 
Williamstown  and  called  upon  President  Fitch,  who 
asked  him  how  long  he  had  been  studying  and  how 
much  Latin  and  Greek  he  had  read.  "I  told  him 
frankly  and  he  shook  his  head,  saying  he  could  give 
me  no  encouragement  of  entering  before  another 
year.  ...  I  went  out  from  his  presence  with  a  heavy 
heart,  but  thought  I  would  use  one  effort  more;  that 
was  to  call  on  the  tutors  and  hear  what  they  would 
say  to  me.  I  found  two  of  them  together.  .  .  .  One 
1  Life  of  Gerard  Hallock,  37.  *  Jonas  King,  Missionary,  21. 

119 


WILLIAMS  COLLEGE 

replied  very  shortly  that  it  was  out  of  all  question  to 
think  of  entering  and  left  the  room.  I  then  asked  the 
other  if  I  could  not  be  admitted  for  a  while  on  proba- 
tion. .  .  .  Mr.  E[merson]  (the  tutor)  looked  at  me  with 
attention  and  then  demanded  if  I  had  been  studying 
with  the  Rev.  Mr.  Wood  of  Halifax.  I  replied  that  I 
had.  'If/  said  he,  'you  are  the  same  young  man  of 
whom  I  have  heard  him  speak,  I  will  guarantee  that 
you  will  be  admitted  before  the  close  of  the  year. 
Come  on,  and  I  will  speak  to  the  president  in  your 
behalf.'  This  was  like  the  dawn  of  morning  to  a  night- 
worn  and  weather-beaten  sailor.  ...  I  returned  home 
with  a  light  and  gladsome  heart,  packed  up  my  books 
and  clothes  which  I  had  left  there,  and  having  re- 
ceived the  prayers  and  benedictions  of  my  parents,  set 
out  a  second  time  for  Williamstown.  It  was  if  I  recol- 
lect rightly  some  time  in  March  (1812).  A  thaw  had 
taken  place,  the  snow  was  rapidly  melting,  the  roads 
were  filled  with  water  and  mud,  which  rendered  it 
extremely  unpleasant  and  wearisome  travelling.  It 
began  moreover  to  rain,  but  at  length  I  saw  the  lights 
of  the  lamp  of  science  beaming  faintly  on  me  through 
the  intervening  darkness  .  .  .  and  I  marched  on  with 
a  quicker  step  and  at  about  eleven  o'clock  reached  an 
inn  near  the  college.  The  next  day  I  began  to  reside 
within  the  walls  and  was  permitted  to  recite  with  the 
members  of  the  Freshman  class  who  entered  college 
some  time  before  I  had  read  a  single  word  of  the  Greek 
Testament  or  Graeca  Minora.  'Hie  labor,  hoc  opus 
fuit.'  I  was  obliged  to  study  night  and  day,  to  read 
for  the  first  time  long  lessons  which  they  were  review- 
ing. Two  hundred  lines  of  the  Georgics,  seven  or 

1 20 


WILLIAMSTOWN  OR  ELSEWHERE? 

eight  sections  of  Cicero's  Orations,  together  with  a 
portion  of  the  Graeca  Minora,  was  a  Herculean  task 
for  one  day.  It  often  seemed  to  me  that  my  head 
would  be  crazed,  or  that  I  would  sink  into  the  earth 
under  the  burden  laid  upon  me."  Neither  of  these 
calamities  happened.  At  the  end  of  two  months  he 
passed  successfully  a  public  examination  and  was  ad- 
mitted without  conditions  to  the  Freshman  class. 

The  struggle  continued  through  Sophomore  year 
and  with  such  severity  that  King  spent  nine  months  of 
it  in  teaching.  "My  college  classmates  used  some- 
times to  rally  me  a  little,  saying  I  was  a  singular 
genius  to  keep  up  with  them  and  yet  be  absent  con- 
tinually." 

Junior  year,  though  overshadowed  at  times  by  sea- 
sons of  religious  despondency,  was  on  the  whole  a 
period  of  intellectual  exaltation.  "  My  mind  was  in  a 
state  of  perpetual  enchantment.  I  felt  as  if  I  had  en- 
tered upon  a  new  state  of  existence;  that  I  had  come 
out  of  darkness  into  marvelous  light.  What  I  had 
learned  before  seemed  only  as  a  pebble  on  the  shore." 

"In  September,  1816,"  the  Journals  continue,  "I 
received  my  Bachelor's  degree  and  a  few  weeks  after 
settled  all  my  bills.  Sophomore  year  I  had  received 
from  a  friend  twenty  dollars;  Junior  year  about  the 
same.  Senior  year  sixty  and  fifty  more  from  the  Edu- 
cation Society.  In  two  instances  I  had  received  from 
private  friends  about  one  dollar  and  a  half  or  two 
dollars,  not  more.  This  was  all  the  aid  I  ever  re- 
ceived from  the  time  I  left  my  father's  house  till  I 
left  college.  I  had  furnished  myself  .  .  .  with  books, 
clothing,  board,  everything  except  a  suit  of  clothes 

121 


WILLIAMS  COLLEGE 

which  my  parents  gave  me  at  the  age  of  twenty-one, 
which  was  called  my  freedom  suit.  When  I  had  stud- 
ied one  book,  I  sold  that  to  purchase  another,  and  at 
the  close  sold  all  I  had  left  to  bear  my  part  of  the  ex- 
penses at  Commencement.'1  1 

The  latter  career  of  Jonas  King  did  not  belie  the 
promise  of  his  college  days.  Five  languages  he  could 
speak  and  had  a  working  knowledge  of  six  more.2  He 
wrote  Greek,  Arabic,  and  French  as  well  as  English 
books.  In  1867  he  addressed  the  Evangelical  Society 
at  Paris  for  nearly  an  hour  in  French,  and  his  fluency  of 
diction,  his  mastery  of  accent  and  idiom  are  said  to 
have  astonished  the  audience.  Then  he  was  no  less 
a  man  of  affairs  than  of  languages.  He  gave  forty-one 
years  of  unstinted  missionary  service  to  Greece,  and 
the  opposition  he  encountered  affords  conclusive  evi- 
dence of  its  importance  and  power.  The  Areopagus 
and  Holy  Synod  attempted  to  drive  him  out  of  the 
country.  They  ultimately  failed,  but  it  was  not  in 
consequence  of  any  lack  of  effort.  One  of  their  agents 
wrote  Dr.  King  an  interesting  personal  letter.  "  I  am 
determined  ...  to  pursue  you  through  the  whole 
world  under  the  sun,"  this  thorough-paced  hench- 
man announced,  "to  set  forth  ...  of  what  an  utterly 
wicked  and  devilish  spirit  you  are."  3  The  rage  and 
persecution  gradually  subsided  and  his  last  days  were 
relatively  untroubled.  "  We  heard  a  sermon  from  him 
in  Greek,"  said  Professor  Jacobus,  of  Allegheny  Theo- 
logical Seminary,  writing  from  Athens  in  the  spring 

1  Jonas  King,  Missionary,  27-32. 

2  Jessup,  Fifty-three  Years  in  Syria,  I,  41. 
1  New  York  Observer,  May  22,  1861. 

122 


WILLIAMSTOWN  OR  ELSEWHERE? 

of  1851,  "and  the  noble  language  of  Plato  and  De- 
mosthenes, though  modernized,  had  a  new  charm  and 
power."  1 

That  Zephaniah  Moore  should  not  have  lingered  in 
Williamstown  is  hardly  surprising.  On  the  morning 
after  Commencement,  accompanied  by  his  zealous 
friend  and  ally,  the  Rev.  Dr.  Theophilus  Packard,  he 
started  on  horseback  over  Hoosac  Mountain  for  Am- 
herst,  where  eleven  days  later  "the  Ceremonies  of 
Dedication  and  the  Inauguration  of  officers  of  the 
Collegiate  Institute  " 2  took  place.  A  man  of  intellec- 
tual parts  and  personal  charm,  an  efficient  executive 
withal,  he  lacked  only  one  thing  as  President  of  the 
Berkshire  institution  —  confidence  in  its  future. 

1  New  York  Observer,  July  17,  1851. 

2  Williams  made  large  contributions  to  the  Institute,  furnishing  it 
with  a  president,  a  professor,  —  Gamaliel  S.  Olds,  —  and  fifteen  under- 
graduates in  a  total  of  forty-seven.  Besides,  a  Williams  alumnus  —  the 
Rev.  Dr.  Aaron  W.  Leland,  of  Charleston,  South  Carolina  —  preached 
the  inaugural  sermon.  (Ford,  Notes  on  the  Life  of  Noah  Webster,  n,  503.) 


CHAPTER  V 

A  SECOND  AND  GREATER  CRISIS 

AN  event  not  announced  on  the  programme  occurred 
during  the  Commencement  exercises  September  7, 
1821,  —  the  appearance  of  a  stranger  in  the  little 
group  of  Trustees  upon  the  platform,  "a  person  about 
fifty  years  of  age,  of  most  commanding  figure  and 
presence."  1  This  magnificent  stranger  was  the  Rev. 
Dr.  Edward  Dorr  Griffin,  whom  Thaddeus  Pomeroy 
had  persuaded  to  visit  Williamstown.  Favorably  im- 
pressed by  what  he  saw  and  heard,  he  accepted  the 
presidency  of  the  college  —  greatly  to  the  relief  of  the 
Trustees  and  to  the  surprise  of  the  public. 

A  native  of  East  Haddam,  Connecticut,  born 
January  6,  1770,  and  a  farmer's  son,  the  successor  of 
Ebenezer  Swift  Moore  graduated  at  New  Haven  in  the 
class  of  1790.  He  was  a  scholar  of  high  rank  and 
author  of  the  comedy  presented  by  the  Linonian  So- 
ciety in  I789.2  Studying  theology  with  the  younger 
Edwards,  he  entered  upon  his  ministerial  novitiate 
June  4, 1795,  at  New  Hartford,  Connecticut.  After  six 
years  of  successful  service  he  accepted  a  call  to  the 
First  Presbyterian  Church  at  Newark,  New  Jersey, 
where  his  congregation  is  said  to  have  been  one  of 
the  largest  and  most  respectable  in  the  United  States.3 
This  pastorate  lasted  until  1 809,  a  period  of  eight  years, 

1  Cooke,  Recollections,  38.  2  Kingsley,  Yale  College,  n,  315. 

8  Sprague,  Annals,  iv,  29. 

124 


EDWARD   DORR  GRIFFIN 
1821-1836 


A  SECOND  AND  GREATER  CRISIS 

when  he  accepted  the  chair  of  Pulpit  Eloquence  in 
Andover  Theological  Seminary.  He  had  scarcely 
begun  his  work  there  when  Park  Street  Church,  Bos- 
ton, recently  founded  in  the  interest  of  orthodox  the- 
ology, which  the  popularity  of  liberal  preachers  like 
Buckminster  and  Channing  had  put  somewhat  on  the 
defensive,  began  to  solicit  him  to  undertake  its  pastor- 
ate. This  he  finally  consented  to  do,  resigned  the  pro- 
fessorship, and  was  installed  as  the  first  minister  of  the 
church,  July  31,1811.  In  his  pastorate  of  three  years 
and  nine  months,  whatever  else  may  have  been  ac- 
complished, he  failed  to  restore  Calvinism  to  its  lost 
seat  of  authority. 

When  Dr.  Griffin  left  Andover  and  reentered  the 
ministry  he  did  not,  as  it  turned  out,  wholly  sever  his 
connection  with  the  educational  world.  "I  have 
lately  become  one  of  the  overseers  of  Cambridge 
College,"  he  wrote  the  Rev.  James  Richards,  May  2, 
1812.  "About  the  time  of  my  coming  here  the  So- 
cinians  got  a  law  passed  ...  to  disfranchise  the  six 
towns  1  whose  ministers  were  ex  officio  members  of  the 
Board.  .  .  .  Last  winter  the  Democratic  Assembly  re- 
pealed the  law  .  .  .  and  Mr.  Thacher  and  I  rode  in  on 
their  shoulders."  2 

But  this  academic  episode  contributed  little  to  Dr. 
Griffin 's  happiness.  The  tone  of  satisfaction  which 
pervades  his  letter  to  the  Rev.  Mr.  Richards  is 
wholly  wanting  in  one  to  the  Rev.  Parsons  Cooke 
(1822)  written  after  the  lapse  of  sixteen  years.  In 

1  The  six  towns  were  Cambridge,  Watertown,  Boston,  Charlestown, 
Dorchester,  and  Roxbury. 

2  Sprague,  Sermons  by  the  late  E.  D.  Griffin,  D.D.,  I,  126. 

125 


WILLIAMS  COLLEGE 

this  second  letter  he  gives  an  account  of  his  brief 
experiences  as  a  member  of  the  Harvard  Governing 
Boards.  It  seems  that  notwithstanding  the  action  of 
the  Democratic  Assembly  the  secretary  of  the  Board 
of  Overseers  neglected  to  send  him  notices  of  meet- 
ings. He  waited  two  years  and  then  —  it  was  at  the 
Commencement  of  1813  —  ventured  to  attend  one 
of  them.  His  unexpected  advent  made  a  commotion 
and  a  committee  was  appointed  to  examine  his  "pre- 
tentions."  The  committee  could  not  agree  on  a  re- 
port and  the  Board  appointed  a  day  to  hear  Dr. 
Griffin  in  his  own  behalf.  He  appeared  before  it  at 
the  State  House  and  spoke  an  hour  —  spoke  trium- 
phantly, he  thought.  But  his  eloquence  proved  un- 
availing. A  bill  was  "slipped"  through  the  Legisla- 
ture "to  alter  the  constitution  of  the  Board,  retaining 
all  the  existing  members  except  myself."  l 

Though  the  academic  year  began  in  October,  Presi- 
dent Griffin,  detained  at  Albany  by  serious  and  pro- 
tracted illness  in  his  family,  was  not  inducted  into 
office  until  the  I4th  of  November.2  On  the  day  of 
inauguration,  "dark,  chilly,  rainy  ...  a  handful  of 
students  forty-eight  all  told  .  .  .  gathered  with  a  few 
townspeople  into  what  was  then  one  of  the  largest 
and  dreariest  of  country  meeting-houses."  3  And 
President  Griffin's  address  did  not  show  him  at  his 
best.  He  regretted  that  the  distractions  of  domestic 
anxieties  had  made  careful  and  elaborate  preparation 
for  the  occasion  impossible.  The  most  interesting  part 
of  the  discourse  is  the  statement  of  the  reasons  which 

1  Griffin,  MS.  letter,  November  24, 1826,  in  Williams  College  Library. 
*  Albany  Gazette,  November  2,  1821.         3  Cooke,  Recollections,  47. 

126 


A  SECOND  AND  GREATER  CRISIS 

led  him  to  venture  into  the  wilderness  and  assume  the 
management  of  an  institution  whose  "only  chance  of 
life  stood  in  the  reputation  of  its  president/1  l  We 
have  no  reason  to  believe  that  he  would  have  under- 
taken the  desperate  enterprise  of  rehabilitating  the 
Berkshire  college  had  it  not  been  for  his  fervid,  half- 
romantic  interest  in  Samuel  John  Mills  and  the  hay- 
stack prayer  meeting.2 

The  depression  which  clouded  the  inauguration 
soon  passed  and  a  season  of  fair  weather  began.  Ap- 
parently the  tide  had  turned  —  the  registration  of 
students  rising  from  eighty-four  in  November,  1822, 
to  one  hundred  and  eighteen  in  October,  1823,  — an 
increase  of  forty  per  cent.  But  the  early  sunshine 
days  were  brief.  Scarcely  more  than  a  year  elapsed 
when  the  Amherst  Institute  sent  a  petition  to  the 
Legislature  asking  for  a  college  charter.  The  Williams 
Trustees  took  instant  alarm  and  drew  up  a  protest  to 
the  effect  that  a  second  college  in  Western  Massachu- 
setts would  destroy  the  one  already  established.3  They 
disclaimed  all  personal  feeling  on  the  subject.  With 
a  single  exception  they  were  not  residents  of  Williams- 
town.  To  them  the  location  of  the  college  was  a  mat- 
ter of  indifference,  but  it  should  have  the  support  of 
the  whole  neighboring  section  of  the  Commonwealth.4 

Harvard  and  Brown  as  well  as  Williams  opposed 
the  charter  and  succeeded  in  blocking  it  for  upwards 
of  two  years.  The  slow-paced  controversy  did  not 

1  Cooke,  Recolkctions,  44. 

2  Griffin,  MS.  discourse,  in  Williams  College  Library.     Cox,  New 
York  Evangelist,  August  21,  1856. 

8  Records  of  the  Trustees,  November  19,  1822. 
4  Mass.  Archives,  Memorial  of  the  Trustees  of  Williams  College. 

127 


WILLIAMS  COLLEGE 

enter  upon  its  final  stages  until  the  loth  of  June,  1824, 
when  a  committee  of  investigation  began  hearings  at 
Amherst,  continued  them  a  fortnight,  then  recom- 
mended that  the  charter  should  be  granted  and  the 
Legislature  adopted  their  report. 

Upon  one  point  the  Williams  Trustees  and  the  leg- 
islative committee  agreed  —  Western  Massachusetts 
could  not  adequately  support  two  colleges.  The  latter 
hoped  and  believed  that  at  some  future  and  happier 
period,  when  present  controversies  had  been  forgotten, 
they  would  be  united  —  and  in  the  town  of  Amherst. 
For  this  reason  the  committee  advised  —  and  the 
suggestion  pleased  the  Legislature  —  that  a  section 
should  be  incorporated  in  the  charter  providing  for 
the  ultimate  union  of  the  colleges.1  Nor  was  the  senti- 
ment exactly  a  passing  legislative  mood.  In  1827 
Amherst  and  Williams  both  solicited  grants  of  money 
from  the  State  and  failed  to  get  them.  The  committee 
which  had  the  business  in  charge  included  in  its  report 
a  vigorous  protest  against  the  two-college  folly.2 

In  Williamstown  the  Amherst  charter  created  a 
panic  which,  said  President  Griffin,  "  seized  the  public 
mind  and  extended  to  the  college.  About  thirty  took 
dismissions  in  the  spring  and  summer;  and  at  com- 
mencement a  class  came  in  of  seven.  .  .  .  Our  number 
sunk  from  120  to  80.  ...  The  heavens  were  covered 
with  blackness;  and  during  the  awful  syncope  that 
succeeded  in  vacation,  we  often  looked  up  and  in- 
quired l Is  this  death?'"* 

1  Mass.  Archives,  Report  of  the  Committee,  January  8,  1825. 

*  Ibid.,  February  19,  1827. 

8  Griffin,  Sermon  at  the  Dedication  of  the  New  Chapel,  27,  28.      Am- 

128 


A  SECOND  AND  GREATER  CRISIS 

The  college  and  its  fortunes  had,  indeed,  come  to  a 
desperate  pass  —  students  "taking  dismissions,"  the 
faculty  showing  ominous  signs  of  disintegration,  and 
a  legislative  committee  recommending  a  union  with 
Amherst.  President  Griffin  perceived  that  the  chief 
source  of  trouble  lay  in  the  persistent  talk  about 
removal  and  that  something  must  be  done  to  stop  it. 
He  thought  that  if  twenty-five  thousand  dollars 
should  be  raised  —  a  new  professorship  established 
and  a  new  building  added  to  the  campus  —  the  mis- 
chievous talk  would  cease. 

All  the  plans  and  hopes  would  probably  have  failed 
had  it  not  been  for  the  intervention  of  an  ex- 
traordinary, perhaps  we  may  say  unexpected,  event. 
Soon  after  the  opening  of  the  college  year  in  the 
autumn  of  1825,  when  conditions  seemed  at  the  worst, 
a  great  religious  awakening  began.  For  a  considerable 
period  it  pushed  aside  every  other  interest  and  dom- 
inated the  community.  Even  the  exercises  of  the  lit- 
erary societies  were  opened  and  concluded  with 
prayer.  Under  the  date  of  December  7,  1825,  an  un- 
wonted paragraph  appears  in  the  Philotechnian 
records :  — 

"Owing  to  the  high  state  of  religious  feeling  in  Col- 
lege, several  were  excused  from  fulfilling  their  appoint- 
ments. As  it  is  from  the  Almighty  that  we  receive  the 
mental  powers  by  which  we  are  enabled  to  pursue 
science  and  literature  .  .  .  the  secretaiy  does  not  deem 
it  out  of  place  to  record  here  the  humble  acknowledge- 
ments that  are  due  to  God  for  the  glorious  displays  of 

herst  opened  in  the  autumn  of  1825  with  a  registration  of  one  hun- 
dred and  fifty-two  students. 

129 


WILLIAMS  COLLEGE 

divine  grace  and  mercy  which  he  is  now  manifesting 
among  us.  ...  When  all  learning  shall  be  of  no  ac- 
count; when  all  that  genius  and  art  have  done  shall 
decay,  and  this  society  be  numbered  among  the  vast 
assemblage  .  .  .  around  the  judgment  seat  of  the  great 
Eternal,  then  shall  we  view  the  scenes  which  are  now 
here  exhibiting  with  unspeakable  interest  —  then 
shall  we  render  higher  ascriptions  of  praise  to  God." 

This  revival,  in  which  about  seventy  of  the  eighty 
students  enrolled  were  converted,  saved  the  college  — 
saved  it  by  the  faith  and  hope  imparted  to  the  only 
man  in  the  world  who  could  have  raised  the  twenty- 
five  thousand  dollars.  To  secure  at  that  time  and  in 
the  depressed  financial  condition  of  the  country  so 
large  a  sum  for  an  institution,  generally  thought  to 
be  misplaced  and  "struggling  in  the  agonies  of 
death/' 1  was  an  almost  hopeless  task.  President 
Griffin  undertook  the  task  and  accomplished  it.  But 
he  declared  in  the  most  emphatic  manner  that  with- 
out the  push  and  inspiration  of  the  revival  he  "  could 
never  have  been  wrought  up  to  so  mighty  a  work/' 
Had  it  not  inspired  him  with  "a  sweet  and  sustaining 
confidence"  he  would  have  turned  back  a  hundred 
times  during  the  progress  of  the  money-raising  cam- 
paign.2 

The  twenty-five  thousand  dollars  were  secured, 
and  the  Trustees  at  their  meeting  December  5,  1826, 
appropriated  fifteen  thousand  dollars  to  endow  a 
professorship  of  Rhetoric  and  Moral  Philosophy  and 
"the  remainder  (if  so  much  be  necessary)  to  the 

1  Griffin,  Sermon  at  the  Dedication  of  the  New  Chapel,  31. 
*  Ibid.,  30. 

130 


A  SECOND  AND  GREATER  CRISIS 

building  of  a  chapel."  l  It  is  evident  from  an  advertise- 
ment of  the  contractors  which  appeared  in  the  local 
newspaper  that  this  remainder  did  not  consist  wholly 
of  money;  as  they  requested  all  who  had  made  sub- 
scriptions in  timber,  plank,  and  boards  to  deliver 
them  by  the  1st  of  June.2 

The  Trustees  appointed  the  President,  Dr.  Lyndon 
A.  Smith,  and  Daniel  Noble  a  building  committee, 
who  carried  forward  the  work  with  so  much  energy 
that  the  corner-stone  was  laid  June  27.  On  that  inter- 
esting occasion  Dr.  Griffin  "made  a  short  but  very 
eloquent  address  ...  in  which  he  remarked  that  the 
permanence  of  the  college  might,  from  the  erection  of 
another  edifice,  be  considered  as  established  beyond 
a  doubt."  He  hoped  that  "the  foundation  of  the 
building  would  remain  unmoved  until  the  last  con- 
vulsion of  nature."3  In  the  corner-stone  a  box  was 
placed  containing  the  names  of  the  Trustees,  the  fac- 
ulty, and  the  students,  together  with  those  of  the 
architect,  the  carpenters,  and  the  building  committee. 
President  Griffin  said  that  "he  sent  the  names  down 
to  posterity  and  if  they  should  not  be  brought  to  light 
till  the  final  consummation  of  all  things  he  hoped 
they  might  be  found  registered  in  the  Book  of 
Life."4 

The  new  chapel,  now  called  Griffin  Hall,  beautiful 
in  the  harmony  of  its  proportions,  exhibiting  all  the 
"sweet  symplicity"  which  Carlyle  said  distinguishes 
the  architecture  of  Sir  Christopher  Wren,  was  dedi- 

1  Records  of  the  Trustees,  December  5,  1826. 

1  American  Advocate,  April  24,  1827. 

1  Ibid.,  July  4,  1827.  4  Ibid. 


WILLIAMS  COLLEGE 

cated  September  2,  1828.*  It  was  the  end  of  an  era  — 
a  despondent  era  of  debate  and  uncertainty.  To  all 
arguments  of  sceptics  a  practical  and  conclusive  an- 
swer had  now  been  made.  The  victorious  energy 
which  built  the  chapel  and  endowed  the  professorship 
would  be  able  to  cope  with  the  emergencies  of  the 
future.  As  for  the  chapel  it  was  financially,  architec- 
turally, and  in  all  other  respects  the  creation  of  the 
man  whose  name  it  now  bears.  "If  you  knew  how 
much  has  come  upon  me,"  he  wrote,  regretting  his 
inability  to  speak  at  the  anniversary  of  the  Education 
Society,  "in  consequence  of  building  the  new  chapel 
(the  direction  of  everything  in  doors  and  out)  in  addi- 
tion to  my  other  cares  you  would  not  wonder  at  my 
declining."  2 

A  noticeable  group  of  men  came  into  the  faculty 
during  the  third  administration  —  William  Augustus 
Porter  (1818),  Ebenezer  Emmons  (1818),  Mark 
Hopkins  (1824),  Albert  Hopkins  (1826),  Joseph  Alden 
(Union  1829),  and  Edward  Lasell  (1828).  These  men 
all  continued  in  the  service  of  the  college  long  after 
the  date  of  President  Griffin,  with  a  single  exception. 

1  In  1904  Griffin  Hall  was  moved  a  few  rods  northeast  from  its  orig- 
inal position  to  bring  it  into  line  with  Thompson  Memorial  Chapel, 
and  the  Trustees  caused  a  tablet  to  be  placed  upon  the  walls  with  the 
following  inscription:  — 

1828  Griffin  Hall  1904 

A  monument  to  the  faith  and  skill  of 

President  Edward  Dorr  Griffin 

Moved,  reconstructed,  and  furnished 

as  a  tribute  to  his  Alma  Mater  by 

Francis  Lynde  Stetson 

of  the  class  of  1867 

*  Griffin,  MS.  letter,  November  12,  1828. 

132 


A  SECOND  AND  GREATER  CRISIS 

Professor  Porter,  elected  to  the  chair  of  Ancient 
Languages  in  1826,  and  transferred  the  next  year  to 
that  of  Rhetoric  and  Moral  Philosophy,  died  April  2, 
1830,  greatly  lamented  by  his  colleagues  and  the 
whole  community.1 

In  1827  the  teaching  staff  suffered  serious  loss  in 
the  resignation  of  Chester  Dewey  —  an  event  which 
drew  from  the  Trustees  a  colorless  and  inadequate 
resolution,  thanking  him  for  his  "long,  faithful,  and 
laborious  service."  It  had  been  all  that  and  a  great 
deal  more.  By  his  energy  and  scientific  aptitude,  by 
his  ability  to  get  the  most  out  of  a  meagre,  primitive 
apparatus,2  and  by  his  effective  gifts  of  speech  he 
made  natural  science  a  prominent  feature  in  the  intel- 
lectual life  of  the  college  during  the  seventeen  years 
of  his  professorship.  Whether  fully  appreciated  at 
Williamstown  or  not,  he  was  rated  in  Europe  and 
America  as  the  highest  authority  on  sedges. 

In  the  curriculum  no  important  or  unusual  changes 
occurred.  The  Catalogue  of  1822-23  announced 
courses  for  graduate  students,  but  they  appear  to 
have  been  discontinued  at  the  end  of  the  year.  Though 
the  chair  of  Political  Economy  was  not  established 
until  1836,  lectures  on  the  subject  began  in  i827.3 
Another  and  passing  innovation  also  belongs  to  that 
year —  "  extra-mural "  instruction  in  Spanish  by  a  Mr. 
Casas,  whoever  he  may  have  been.  The  only  informa- 

1  American  Advocate,  April  7,  1830. 

2  Blackboards  were  not  known  in  any  college  course,  Professor 
Dewey  drew  his  illustrations  and  worked  his  problems  with  chalk  on  the 
floor  of  the  recitation  room."  (William  Hyde  (1826),  in  the  Athenceum, 
May  21,  1881.) 

3  Records  of  the  Trustees,  September  5,  1827. 

133 


WILLIAMS  COLLEGE 

tion  available  about  the  matter  is  a  paragraph  in  the 
local  newspaper.  "On  Monday  last/'  wrote  the  re- 
porter, "  the  Spanish  class  in  Williams  College  was  ex- 
amined before  the  faculty."  l  During  the  last  year  of 
the  third  administration  —  the  year  1835-36  —  there 
were  two  events  of  some  importance  which  directly  or 
indirectly  affected  the  curriculum.  One  of  them  was 
the  establishing  of  a  chair  of  Latin  which  previously 
had  been  included  in  that  of  the  Ancient  Languages. 
The  other  was  the  reorganization  of  the  society  now 
called  the  Lyceum  of  Natural  History.  It  seems  to 
have  had  two  earlier  names,  —  the  Linnaean  Society 
and  Phi  Beta  Theta,  —  but  the  records  have  been  lost 
and  our  knowledge  of  them  is  mostly  conjectural.  Not 
content  with  local  work,  in  this  year  of  reorganization 
the  society  sent  an  expedition  to  Nova  Scotia  for 
scientific  purposes,  which  was  the  first  enterprise  of 
the  sort  undertaken  by  any  American  college.  The 
party,  consisting  of  three  members  of  the  faculty,  — 
Professor  Albert  Hopkins,  Dr.  Emmons,  and  Mr. 
Tutor  Calhoun,  —  fifteen  undergraduates,  and  "one 
or  two  young  men  of  liberal  curiosity,"  2  sailed  from 
Boston  August  25,  and  had  considerable  success  in 
making  collections  for  the  museum. 

What  of  Williams  students  in  the  fifteen  years  of 
the  third  administration?  According  to  the  Rev.  Dr. 
Prime,  a  prominent  graduate  of  the  class  of  1829,  the 
reputation  of  the  institution  as  the  seat  of  a  vigorous 
revivalism  had  unexpected  consequences.  "At  that 
time,"  he  said,  speaking  of  conditions  in  1826-29, 

1  American  Advocate,  August  2,  1827. 

2  American  Traveller,  November  13,  17,  20,  1835. 

134 


A  SECOND  AND  GREATER  CRISIS 

"  there  were  in  the  lower  classes  of  the  college  some  of 
the  wickedest  youth  I  ever  knew.  .  .  .  Parents  who 
had  profligate  sons  sent  them  here  that  they  might 
come  under  the  power  of  divine  grace."1  And  Dr. 
Prime's  statement  seems  to  be  confirmed  by  Albert 
Hopkins,  who  deplored  the  lawless,  in  some  cases 
sacrilegious  undergraduate  activities,  which  preceded, 
and  after  no  very  long  interval  followed,  the  great 
revival  of  i825.2 

The  vicious  young  men,  sent  to  Williamstown  as  a 
promising  reformatory,  found  themselves  in  a  com- 
munity where  religious  services  abounded.  From  the 
opening  of  the  college  year  until  the  1st  of  May  the 
day  began  with  prayers  in  the  chapel,  "at  sunrise  or  a 
little  before."3  Vespers  came  late  in  the  afternoon  — 
the  faculty,  dissatisfied  for  some  unknown  reason 
with  the  existing  schedule,  voted  in  November,  1831, 
that  they  " should  begin  exactly  at  sundown."4  On 
Sunday  there  were  religious  services  morning,  after- 
noon, and  evening,  with  attendance  required  at  the 
first  two.  How  the  experiment  turned  out,  what 
effect  life  at  Williams  had  upon  those  "wickedest 
youth,"  Dr.  Prime  fails  to  tell  us. 

We  are  not  to  suppose  that  prayer  meetings  and 
revivals  supplanted  the  ordinary  machineries  of  disci- 
pline, though  President  Griffin  was  not  particularly 
skilful  or  successful  in  managing  these  machineries. 
On  the  contrary,  except  in  periods  of  revival,  they 
were  in  active  operation.  Some  rather  serious  offences 

1  Prime,  Autobiography  and  Memorials,  167. 
1  Durfee,  History  of  Williams  College,  224-25. 
8  President  Griffin,  MS.  Notebook,  1827. 
4  Records  of  the  Faculty,  1821-36. 

135 


WILLIAMS  COLLEGE 

are  noted  in  the  meagre  records  of  the  faculty  —  such 
as  desecrations  of  the  chapel,  assaults  upon  the  houses 
of  professors  and  upon  a  "citizen  of  the  town," 
"  offering  personal  violence  and  great  indignity  to  a 
fellow-student"  and  "setting  fire  to  a  college  build- 
ing." For  these  graver  offences  summary  expulsion 
was  the  penalty.  Other  and  lesser  misdeeds  were  ex- 
piated by  suspension,  rustication,  confession  in  the 
chapel,  or  "a  solemn  talk"  with  members  of  the  fac- 
ulty. One  young  man  who  declined  to  answer  ques- 
tions "concerning  some  late  riotous  proceedings  in 
college  was  directed  to  go  home  to-morrow."  An 
enterprising  fellow  who  "took  spirits  from  Professor 
Kellogg's  room  .  .  .  where  it  had  been  placed  by  the 
professor  himself,"  got  off  with  nothing  worse  than  a 
public  admonition.  For  the  great  majority  of  trans- 
gressions, however,  fines  were  still  the  favorite  penalty.1 
Occasionally  a  student,  who  had  been  disciplined, 
retaliated.  There  was  an  astonishing  instance  of 
counter-attack  in  the  case  of  Alexander  Hanson 
Strong.  His  misfortunes  began  with  participation 
in  "a  riot,"  which  was  followed  by  an  unusual  see- 
saw of  experiences  —  rustication  and  pardon,  then 
expulsion  and  a  second  pardon.  At  the  conclusion  of 
this  unhappy  series  of  events,  the  young  man,  who 
denied  most  of  the  charges  against  him,  returned  to 
college,  "with  a  bitterness  that  never  lost  the  sweet- 
ness of  its  gall,"  and  patiently  awaited  an  opportu- 
nity for  redressing  his  heavy  wrongs  and  exposing ' '  the 
drivelling  subterfuges  of  the  faculty."  2  That  oppor- 

1  Records  of  the  Faculty,  1821-36,  passim. 

2  Strong,  The  Expelled,  An  Oration,  Second  Edition,  1843. 

136 


A  SECOND  AND  GREATER  CRISIS 

tunity  came  at  the  exhibition  of  the  Adelphic  Union 
July  15,  1835,  when  he  delivered  the  valedictory 
oration  and  assailed  the  faculty  with  a  sophomoric 
fury.  He  declared  that  the  institution,  piloted  by 
superannuated  bigotry,  was  driving  straight  upon  the 
rocks,  and  regretted  that  he  could  not  tarry  to  witness 
the  approaching  catastrophe.  "  Most  gladly,"  he  an- 
nounced, "would  I  remain  to  hear  the  last  groans 
of  its  dividing  timbers,"  but  circumstances  compelled 
him  to  forego  that  satisfaction. 

Two  editions  of  the  oration  were  printed,  the  first 
of  them  appearing  in  1835,  the  second  in  1843.  The 
latter  contained  a  note  to  the  effect  that  conditions 
at  Williamstown  had  radically  changed  for  the  better 
and  that  the  college  was  then  to  be  applauded  rather 
than  "cursed  out."  * 

Though  some  undergraduates  in  the  second  and 
third  decades  of  the  last  century  may  have  been  sent 
to  Williamstown  as  a  moral  sanitarium,  the  great  ma- 
jority were  clean,  earnest,  studious  fellows,  who  got 
their  education  at  the  cost  of  no  little  resolution  and 
self-denial.  Nor  should  the  fact  be  overlooked  that 
in  spite  of  all  the  distractions  of  the  period  they  made 
a  creditable  intellectual  record.  As  in  the  case  of  their 

1  None  of  the  contemporary  newspapers  mentioned  this  event  in 
their  accounts  of  the  Commencement  of  1835.  According  to  traditions 
in  the  Strong  family  the  young  man  did  not  finish  his  oration,  but  was 
removed  from  the  platform  vi  et  armis  by  the  faculty.  That  may  have 
been  a  reason  for  its  immediate  publication. 

The  trouble  is  said  to  have  grown  out  of  disturbances  in  a  village 
prayer  meeting  which  was  broken  up  one  evening  by  a  volley  of  pickles, 
some  of  them  quite  soft,  wickedly  fired  through  an  open  window  at  the 
officiating  clergyman.  Though  Strong  denied  any  participation  in  the 
affair,  the  faculty  brought  him  to  book  for  it.  He  was  a  fine,  sensitive, 
high-strung,  brilliant  fellow  —  sadly  mismanaged. 

137 


WILLIAMS  COLLEGE 

predecessors  the  "minutes"  of  the  debating  societies 
exhibit  an  interesting  phase  of  it.  The  members  of 
these  societies  discussed  political,  Biblical,  and  philo- 
sophical questions,  though  not  to  the  exclusion  of  per- 
sonal and  local  matters,  and  reached  some  rather 
unexpected  conclusions;  such  as,  Christianity  has  been 
unfavorable  to  the  development  of  literature;  the 
society  of  ladies  should  be  avoided  by  undergraduates ; 
students  who  "know  of  scrapes "  ought  to  report 
them;  and  "people  of  color"  should  not  be  admitted 
to  "the  colleges  of  New  England."  l 

The  last  question  was  debated  in  the  Philotechnian 
Society,  June  9,  1834.  Some  time  in  the  administra- 
tion of  President  Fitch  —  the  exact  date  of  the  event 
is  unknown  —  the  Trustees  found  themselves  in  a 
position  where  they  must  not  only  discuss  the  ques- 
tion, but  take  action  in  regard  to  it.  Lucy  Prince,  a 
colored  woman  and  a  verse-maker  of  some  reputation, 
appeared  before  them  and  made  a  vigorous  plea  for 
the  admission  of  her  son  to  the  institution.2  Though 
her  request  was  not  granted,  yet  we  should  misjudge 
these  Trustees  if  we  rated  them  as  exceptionally 

1  Records,  Philotechnian  and  Philologian  Societies,   1821-36.    The 
young  men,  it  seems,  sometimes  failed  to  observe  the  conventions  of 
propriety  at  the  meetings  of  the  societies.  For  all  offences  there  appears 
to  have  been  a  uniform  penalty  of  six  and  a  quarter  cents,  though  they 
ranged  through  a  considerable  scale  of  objectionable  qualities.   A  par- 
tial and  random  list  of  them  between  October  30,  1830,  and  March  26, 
1836,  comprises  reading  during  the  exercises,  whispering,  disorderly 
conduct,  eating  chestnuts,  making  various  and  uncouth  noises,  lying 
down,  snoring,  pulling  Helmes'  hair  and  beating  his  head  with  a  cane. 
October  n,  1832,  a  bylaw  was  passed  declaring  that  it  "  shall  be  con- 
sidered disorderly  and  ungentlemanlike  ...  to  stamp  on  the  floor  dur- 
ing the  time  of  meeting." 

2  Sheldon,  History  of  Deerfield,  n,  900. 

138 


A  SECOND  AND  GREATER  CRISIS 

conservative.  Long  after  the  advent  of  Lucy  Prince 
in  Williamstown,  an  attempt  to  establish  a  training- 
school  for  negroes  in  New  Haven  was  defeated  on 
the  ground  that  it  would  hurt  Yale;  the  Trustees  of 
Phillips  Andover  suppressed  an  anti-slavery  society, 
which  the  boys,  stirred  by  the  eloquence  of  George 
Thompson,  had  organized;  and  Harvard  dismissed  a 
professor  because  he  was  an  abolitionist. 

Whatever  the  dominant  sentiment  among  the 
Trustees  may  have  been  in  the  time  of  President 
Fitch,  and  however  the  adverse  vote  of  the  debating 
society  may  be  explained,  Williams  students,  in  the 
third  and  fourth  decades  of  the  nineteenth  century, 
were  not  unfriendly  to  the  negro.  On  the  contrary, 
under  the  lead  of  Professor  Chester  Dewey,  they  es- 
tablished the  first  anti-slavery  society  in  Massachu- 
setts. This  was  in  I823,1  eight  years  before  William 
Lloyd  Garrison  began  to  publish  the  "Liberator." 
A  majority  of  the  students  belonged  to  the  organiza- 
tion. They  held  annual  meetings  for  a  considerable 
period  —  at  least  until  1831  —  on  the  Fourth  of  July, 
listened  to  appropriate  orations,  and  sang  original 
odes.  One  of  the  latter,  written  for  the  anniversary 
of  1830,  is  a  fair  specimen  of  this  occasional  verse:  — 

While  millions  hail  the  joyous  morn 
When  freedom  rose  in  all  her  pride; 
While  shouts  that  welcome  its  return 
Swell  with  the  breeze  that  sweeps  the  tide; 

Why  sounds  from  far  the  cry  of  woe? 
Why  blends  the  voice  of  joy  and  pain? 

1  Noble,  Centennial  Discourse,  30. 
139 


WILLIAMS  COLLEGE 

Oh,  who  this  day  can  sorrow  know, 
Or  wear,  when  all  are  free  —  a  chain? 

The  light  of  Freedom,  broad  and  fair, 
Meets  not  the  slave's  benighted  eye; 
He  hopeless  groans  in  dark  despair 
In  fetters  forced  to  toil  and  die.1 

Then  follows  a  stanza  to  the  effect  that  America 
should  never  be  called  the  land  of  liberty  until  slav- 
ery has  been  destroyed. 

The  society  was  invited  to  send  delegates  to  the 
annual  meeting  of  the  "  American  Convention  for 
Promoting  the  Abolition  of  Slavery  and  Improving 
the  Condition  of  the  African  Race,"  held  at  Philadel- 
phia in  1826,  but  found  it  more  practicable  to  send 
a  communication.  And  this  document,  moderate  in 
tone,  inclined  to  projects  of  gradual  colonization 
rather  than  of  immediate  emancipation,  is  positive 
enough  on  the  general  issue.  "The  question/'  we  are 
told  in  the  concluding  paragraph  of  the  communica- 
tion,—  "the  question  whether  the  negroes  shall  be 
free  is  settled;  for  the  Almighty  will  undertake  their 
cause.  What  remains  to  be  developed  is  whether  in 
the  mysteriousness  of  His  ways,  he  designs  to  visit 
our  nation  in  wrath  and  suffer  the  history  of  its  ruin 
to  be  written  ...  for  the  admonition  of  all  succeeding 
ages."  2 

1  American  Advocate,  July  7,  1830. 

2  Minutes  of  the  American  Convention,  1826.    The  officers  of  the  Wil- 
liams Society  for  1826  were  Professor  Chester  Dewey,  president,  Joseph 
Merrill  Sadd  (1827),  vice-president,  and  Fordyce  Mitchell  Hubbard 
(1828),  secretary.    All  the  records  of  the  society  appear  to  have  been 
lost. 

140 


A  SECOND  AND  GREATER  CRISIS 

In  1827  another  reform  began  —  a  vigorous  student 
movement  against  the  use  of  intoxicating  liquors. 
The  need  of  reform  was  evident  and  had  been  for  a 
long  period.  Emory  Washburn  said  that  in  his  day 
4 '  everybody  drank. ' '  Some  undergraduates  then  kept 
liquor  in  their  rooms  and  "  indulged  in  its  use  .  .  . 
without  concealment  or  disguise."  He  insisted,  how- 
ever, that  nothing  "like  a  prevailing  vice  of  drunken- 
ness" existed,  and  he  did  not  believe  that  any  of  them 
carried  away  from  Williamstown  "a  habit  of  intem- 
perance contracted  there."  l  Probably  conditions 
were  not  then  essentially  different  from  what  they 
had  been  during  the  twenty  preceding  years  and  con- 
tinued to  be  in  the  decade  that  followed.  "  Drunken- 
ness," said  Albert  Hopkins  in  reference  to  his  under- 
graduate days,  which  began  in  1824  and  came  to  an 
end  in  1826,  "  was  an  experience  not  infrequent; .  .  . 
the  gravest  men  in  college,  certainly  with  one  or 
two  exceptions  did  not  scruple  to  drink  (or  at  least 
drank)  on  set  occasions."  2 

Emory  Washburn  wrote  his  "  Introduction"  to  Dr. 
Durfee's  "History"  in  1859,  forty-two  years  after  his 
graduation.  That  "most  favorable  change,"  to  which 
he  called  attention,  "in  the  matter  of  intoxicating 
drinks,"  dates  from  Sunday,  July  8,  1827,  when  the 
Rev.  Henry  G.  Ludlow,3  of  New  York  City,  preached 
in  Williamstown  on  the  subject  of  intemperance,  and 
preached  so  effectively  that  the  students  immediately 

1  Durfee,  History  of  Williams  College,  24. 

*  Ibid.,  216. 

1  American  Advocate,  July  19,  1827.  At  the  following  commence- 
ment the  college  conferred  upon  the  Rev.  Mr.  Ludlow  the  honorary 
degree  of  Master  of  Arts. 

141 


WILLIAMS  COLLEGE 

formed  an  anti-drinking  association  with  fifty-seven 
members,  and  called  it  The  Williams  Temperate  So- 
ciety. They  adopted  a  constitution  which  prohibited 
the  use  of  ardent  spirits  and  wine  except  "  for  wounds, 
in  case  of  sickness,  by  the  advice  of  a  physician,  at 
the  sacrament,  or  when  necessary  for  the  preserva- 
tion of  life."  Some  of  the  undergraduates  objected  to 
this  pledge  as  extreme  and  impracticable.  "It  is 
true,"  said  the  advocates  of  it,  "we  were  ahead  of 
public  opinion.  .  .  .  But  we  are  not  of  the  number  of 
those  who  idly  pretend  that  we  must  merely  keep 
pace  with  the  public  .  .  .  and  not  attempt  to  lead  it."1 
The  dissatisfaction  resulted  in  the  formation  of  a 
second  organization,  The  New  Temperance  Society 
of  Williams  College,  in  the  spring  of  1828,  with  a 
milder  constitution.  At  its  annual  meeting  the  next 
year  this  society  passed  a  resolution  declaring  "that 
the  use  of  ardent  spirits  in  any  quantity  by  the  stu- 
dent is  most  sincerely  to  be  deprecated."  Members 
of  the  older  organization  denounced  this  resolution  as 
a  dangerous  heresy  and  read  its  supporters  out  of  the 
ranks  of  temperance  workers  —  a  proceeding  which 
enraged  the  New  Society  people.  "We  have  met 
with  opposition,"  they  said  in  their  annual  report 
for  1829,  "from  those  whose  babblings  we  fear  not  and 
whose  praise  would  disgrace  us.  ...  The  effects  of 
their  bigotry  will  recoil  on  themselves.  We  would 
smile  on  their  malice  if  we  did  not  pity  the  ignorance 
that  produces  it!"  2 

These  societies  soon  passed,  but  the  faculty  pres- 
ently took  the  field.   For  a  considerable  period  every 

1  American  Advocate,  July  15,  1829.  *  Ibid.,  July  8,  1829. 

142 


A  SECOND  AND  GREATER  CRISIS 

student  was  required  to  sign  a  pledge  to  the  effect 
that  he  would  neither  drink  intoxicating  liquor  him- 
self nor  supply  it  to  others  while  residing  in  college.1 
This  stringent  regulation  had  a  longer  life  than  the 
temperance  societies,  but  gradually  fell  into  dis- 
use. 

The  honor  roll  of  Williams  graduates  in  the  period 
of  President  Griffin  is  a  creditable  one.  Besides  the 
names  of  Mark  and  Albert  Hopkins  and  of  others  who 
became  essential  factors  in  the  subsequent  history  of 
the  college,  it  contains  those  of  Calvin  Durfee  (1825), 
historian  and  necrologist;  of  Parsons  Cooke  (1822), 
formidable  theological  controversialist,  founder  of  the 
" Puritan  Recorder*'  newspaper,  author  of  the  "  Re- 
collections" of  President  Griffin;  of  Nicholas  Murray 
(1826),  popular  preacher,  once  famous  as  the  ''Kir- 
wan"  whose  letters  to  Archbishop  Hughes  created  a 
world-wide  sensation;  of  Samuel  Irenaeus  Prime 
(1829),  author  of  many  books,  editor  of  the  "New 
York  Observer"  for  more  than  forty  years;  and  of 
Simeon  Howard  Calhoun  (1829),  tutor,  1833-36,  prin- 
cipal of  a  seminary  for  boys  at  Mount  Lebanon,  Syria, 
unsurpassed  among  the  missionary  graduates  of  the 
college  in  consecration,  in  attractiveness  of  person- 
ality, and  in  intellectual  force. 

All  these  men  were  clergymen,  but  some  prominent 
alumni  of  the  period  failed  to  take  orders.  The  lay- 
man of  largest  fame  among  them  was  David  Dudley 
Field  (1825)  "for  at  least  a  third  of  a  century  .  .  .  the 
most  commanding  figure  at  the  American  bar."  Yet 
in  a  sense  the  practice  of  his  profession  was  incidental. 

1  New  York  Evangelist,  July  8, 1847. 
143 


WILLIAMS  COLLEGE 

The  purpose,  which  ruled  his  career  from  early  man- 
hood to  the  day  of  his  death  in  1894,  *s  happily  re- 
corded on  his  tomb  in  Stockbridge:  — 

To  codify  the  common  law; 

To  simplify  legal  procedure; 

To  substitute  arbitration  for  war; 

To  bring  justice  within  the  reach  of  all  men.1 

This  greater  work  of  his  life,  to  which  he  devoted 
more  than  forty  years  of  incessant  toil,  was  his  code 
of  civil  and  of  criminal  procedure.  Twenty-four 
States  have  adopted  the  former  and  eighteen  the  lat- 
ter, and  these  facts  would  seem  to  be  a  sufficient 
answer  to  the  ridicule  and  abuse  which  the  reform 
encountered. 

No  alumnus  of  the  college  had  a  more  romantic 
affection  for  his  Alma  Mater  than  David  Dudley 
Field.  Scenery,  campus,  instructors,  classmates,  all 
appeared  to  him  in  a  glorified  light.  "The  sight  of 
these  faces,  of  these  old  roofs  and  halls,  of  these  mea- 
dows and  streams  and  of  these  encircling  hills,"  he 
said  in  an  oration  before  the  Adelphic  Union,  fifty 
years  after  graduation,  "so  quickens  the  inward 
sense  that  it  sees  forms  that  have  vanished,  and  hears 
voices  that  are  silent.  I  behold  my  classmates  as  I 
beheld  them  filing  into  the  chapel,  or  gathered  at  reci- 
tations, or  sauntering  along  the  walks,  or  resting 
beneath  the  trees.  I  mark  their  gait,  I  hear  their  ear- 
nest debate,  their  hearty  laugh,  and  I  recall  the  strifes, 
the  greetings  and  the  partings  of  those  far-off  days. 
I  look  into  the  sky  —  it  is  the  sky  of  my  boyhood;  the 

1  H.  M.  Field,  Life  of  David  Dudley  Field,  x. 
144 


A  SECOND  AND  GREATER  CRISIS 

stars,  clear  and  silent,  shine  upon  me  and  seem  to  say 

—  We  shine  upon  you  just  the  same  as  we  shone  fifty 
years  ago."  1 

In  the  autumn  of  1830  an  astrayed  Georgian,  Wil- 
liam Lowndes  Yancey,  entered  the  Sophomore  class. 
The  Northern  episode  in  his  career,  which  lasted 
twelve  years,  came  about  in  consequence  of  two  events 

—  the  death  of  his  father  in  1817  and  the  subsequent 
marriage  of  his  mother  to  the  Rev.  N.  S.  S.  Beman, 
who  became  pastor  of  a  Presbyterian  church  at  Troy, 
New  York,  in  1822.   Of  his  three  years  in  college  few 
details  have  survived.    He  joined  the  Philotechnian 
Society  immediately  and  took  an  active  interest  in  its 
various  exercises  —  debates,  critiques,  and  orations. 
October  17,  1832,  the  year  of  an  exciting  Presidential 
campaign,  he  was  the  leading  disputant  for  the  nega- 
tive in  a  discussion  of  the  question  —  "  Would  the 
election   of   General  Jackson   tend   to   destroy   the 
Union?  "  and  lost  the  debate.2  Later,  at  an  exhibition 
of  his  class  he  was  Senior  Orator,  and  at  one  of  the 
Adelphic  Union  First  Orator.  In  the  publication  of 
"The  Adelphi"  3  he  seems  to  have  been  a  leading 
spirit,  and  that  may  explain  partly  the  rather  sur- 
prising freshness  and  vigor  of  that  earliest  and  short- 
lived Williams  periodical.    He   might   have   had  a 
degree,  but  did  not  remain  to  take  it  —  financial 
troubles  sending  him  back  to  Georgia  immediately 
after  the  Senior  examinations  and  six  weeks  before 
Commencement. 

1  D.  D.  Field,  Speeches,  Arguments,  and  Miscellaneous  Papers,  n, 
300. 

2  Records,  Philotechnian  Society, -1832. 

3  Miscellaneous  Collections  of  the  Alabama  Historical  Society,  I,  191. 

145 


WILLIAMS  COLLEGE 

Some  vague  prophecy  of  the  Yancey  that  was  to  be 
emerged  at  Williamstown.  Local  politicians  in  the 
Presidential  campaign  of  1832,  it  is  said,  discovering 
that  he  could  speak  effectively,  included  him  in  the 
list  of  their  " spell-binders."  This  Berkshire  experi- 
ence on  the  stump  —  brief,  tentative,  almost  acci- 
dental, the  record  of  it  dimly  preserved  by  tradition 
—  may  be  regarded  as  a  sort  of  prelude  to  his  real  life. 
Though  his  reputation  is  now  somewhat  faded,  he 
must  be  conceded  "a  place  among  the  half-dozen  men 
who  have  had  most  to  do  in  shaping  American  history 
in  this  [nineteenth]  century."  1  He  was  the  original 
apostle  of  disunion,  championing  it  as  a  practicable 
escape  from  a  more  grievous  calamity,  the  subversion 
of  state  rights  and  the  destruction  of  slavery.  The 
political  theories  of  the  Georgian  stepson  present  a 
violent  contrast  to  those  of  his  Puritan  stepfather.  No 
Southern  heresies  got  a  footing  in  the  creed  of  that 
aggressive  and  intellectual  Presbyterian  divine,  the 
Rev.  Dr.  N.  S.  S.  Beman.  "  Democracy  and  slavery," 
he  exclaimed  in  a  Thanksgiving  sermon,  —  "what  a 
brotherhood.  It  seems  to  me  like  an  alliance  between 
Jerusalem  and  Sodom  ...  a  treaty  of  amity  and  com- 
mercial and  mutual  defence  between  heaven  and 
hell."  2  And  even  in  the  South  Yancey 's  extreme  the- 
ories did  not  find  immediate  acceptance.  His  pre- 
mature proclamation  of  the  doctrine  of  secession  cost 
him  twenty  years  of  political  ostracism.  A  splendid 
though  long-delayed  triumph  awaited  him  at  the 
Democratic  Convention  of  1860  in  Charleston,  since 

1  Brown,  The  Lower  South,  117. 

2  Beman,  Thanksgiving  Sermon,  November  18,  1858. 

146 


A  SECOND  AND  GREATER  CRISIS 

"his  epochal  speech  "  on  that  occasion  "became  the 
Southern  platform."  1 

Yancey's  contemporaries  regarded  him  as  "the 
greatest  orator  ever  heard  in  the  South." 2  He  had  a 
voice  of  singular  sweetness,  clarity,  and  compass  — 
"the  most  perfect  voice,"  it  has  been  said,  "  that  ever 
roused  a  friendly  audience  to  enthusiasm  or  curbed  to 
silence  the  tumults  of  the  most  inimical."3  Natural 
in  gesticulation,  given  to  none  of  the  arts  of  the  dema- 
gogue, sincere  in  his  convictions,  felicitous  in  state- 
ment, and  unsurpassed  in  invective,  he  swayed  his 
audiences  with  a  mastery  seldom  attained  by  the  ora- 
tors of  our  own  or  any  other  time.  His  native  genius 
for  public  speech  undoubtedly  received  no  small  stim- 
ulus from  the  finished  elocution  and  impressive  rheto- 
ric of  President  Griffin.4  That  stimulus  may  have 
been  the  chief  contribution  of  Williams  College 
toward  the  making  of  "the  orator  of  secession." 

In  1833  it  began  to  be  evident  that  the  day  of  Dr. 
Griffin  was  almost  spent.  "The  health  of  the  Presi- 
dent," wrote  an  undergraduate  the  next  year,  "is 
very  poor.  He  cannot  perform  the  duties  of  the  col- 
lege as  they  ought  to  be  performed."5  August  18, 
1835,  having  reached  the  same  conclusion  himself,  he 
handed  his  resignation  to  the  Trustees,  who  concluded 
to  do  nothing  until  "the  indications  of  Providence 
shall  better  enable  them  to  act  thereon."  They  did 

1  The  South  in  the  Building  of  the  Nation,  xn,  578. 

2  Flemming,  Civil  War  and  Reconstruction  in  Alabama,  13;  Brown, 
Lower  South,  118. 

8  Quoted  in  Brown,  Lower  South,  148. 

4  Du  Bose,  Life 'and  Times  of  Yancey,  31. 

6  W.  G.  Brown,  MS.  letter,  December  4, 1834,  Backus  Library,  Boston. 

147 


WILLIAMS  COLLEGE 

vote,  however,  "after  much  consideration, "  that  Pro- 
fessor Mark  Hopkins  "be  requested  to  take  the  en- 
tire charge  of  the  classical  work  of  the  Senior  class."1 
In  1836  the  indications  of  Providence  had  become 
unmistakable,  as  President  Griffin's  health  then  ap- 
peared to  be  shattered  beyond  all  hope  of  recovery, 
and  the  Trustees  accepted  his  resignation.  He  left 
Williamstown  on  the  morning  of  September  28  for 
Newark,  New  Jersey,  where  he  resided  with  his  son- 
in-law,  Dr.  Lyndon  A.  Smith,  until  his  death,  Novem- 
ber 8,  1837.  His  departure  was  attended  by  demon- 
strations of  appreciation  and  affection  on  the  part  of 
the  college.  It  is  to  the  credit  of  students  and  faculty 
that  they  were  not  indifferent  when  the  man  who 
saved  the  institution  from  serene  anchorage  "amid 
the  sunk  reefs  of  oblivion,"2  was  passing  from  its  life 
forever. 

The  qualities  which  made  success  possible  for  Presi- 
dent Griffin  in  the  desperate  Northern  Berkshire 
enterprise  were  various.  No  doubt  his  genius  as  a 
preacher,  to  which  there  is  abundant  contemporary 
testimony,  counted  largely  among  them.  "We  had 
the  pleasure  for  the  first  time,"  wrote  the  editor  of  a 
free-lance  Boston  periodical,  wholly  out  of  sympathy 

1  Records  of  the  Trustees,  August  18, 1835.  "  It  is  known  to  many  that 
the  health  of  the  distinguished  Head  of  this  Institution  has  been  very 
much  impaired  the  last  two  years.  .  .  .  His  place  in  the  Senior  Class  will 
be  supplied  by  Dr.  Hopkins,  the  very  able  and  popular  Professor  of 
Moral  Philosophy  and  Rhetoric.    Dr.  Hopkins  will  be  assisted  in  his 
duties  as  Professor  of  Rhetoric  by  the  new  Professor  of  Latin,  the  Rev. 
Joseph  Alden,  a  gentleman  already  advantageously  known  as  a  man  of 
talents  and  an  experienced  teacher."    (Correspondent,  American  Trav- 
eller, August  19,  1835.) 

2  Rev.  Dr.  S.  H.  Cox,  in  New  York  Evangelist,  August  14,  1856. 

148 


A  SECOND  AND  GREATER  CRISIS 

with  orthodox  theology,  "of  attending  Park  Street 
Meeting  House  on  Sunday  last,  and  a  sincere  pleasure 
we  experienced,  for  we  witnessed  in  the  delivery  of  the 
preacher  all  the  various  .  .  .  powers  of  oratory.  A 
strong,  clear  voice,  capable  of  every  modulation  from 
the  thunder  of  denunciation  to  the  softest  tones  of 
persuasion  —  an  action  at  one  moment  commanding 
and  impressive,  at  another  softening  into  .  .  .  endear- 
ment and  affection  —  composed  part  of  the  accom- 
plishments of  this  interesting  preacher.'* 1 

Nor  were  President  Griffin's  sermons  at  Williams- 
town  less  brilliant  or  effective.  To  the  Rev.  Dr.  Prime, 
writing  many  years  after  his  student  days,  they  still 
seemed  to  be  "surpassingly  eloquent.  ...  I  heard  .  .  . 
the  most  celebrated  discourses  which  have  been  pub- 
lished since  his  death  and  remember  all  the  splendid 
passages  and  the  manner  in  which  he  rendered  them." 2 

The  most  remarkable  description  of  President 
Griffin's  preaching  during  the  Williamstown  period, 
however,  appeared  in  "The  Adelphi."  It  is  an  under- 
graduate poem  of  four  stanzas  in  blank  verse,  two  of 
which  —  the  second  grim  and  realistic  as  the  vision  of 
hell  chiselled  upon  the  facade  of  the  cathedral  at 
Orvieto  —  are  as  follows :  — 

He  spoke  of  heaven !  and  on  the  listening 
Ear  enraptured,  fell  the  symphonies  of 
Paradise,  awaked  by  Gabriel's  ever 
Tuneful  lyre  —  on  the  admiring  vision 
Burst  the  dazzling  throne  —  the  angel  choir  —  the 
Tree  of  life,  where  happy  spirits  bathe,  and 

1  Something,  March  24,  1810. 
*  Prime,  Autobiography  and  Memorials,  163,  164. 
149 


WILLIAMS  COLLEGE 

Drink  immortal  fulness  in  the  fields  of 

Light,  where  freed  from  sin  and  pain,  delighted 

Rove  the  ransomed  heirs  of  bliss. 

He  spoke  of  Hell !  and  with  instinctive  dread 
The  affrighted  heart  recoiled.    Despair's  last 
Agonizing  shriek  ascending  pierced  the 
Soul  and  drunk  its  spirits  up  —  the  never 
Dying  worm  with  closer  grasp  embrac'd  its 
Victim  and  deeper  thrust  its  deadly  fangs  — 
The  lurid  fires  that  quenchless  burn,  arose 
In  forky  flames,  and  threw  their  painful  light 
Upon  the  drear  abode,  where  restless  toss 
On  raging  seas  of  flame  the  sinner  lost, 
While  on  their  heads  the  wrath  of  God  in  one 
Eternal  storm  descends.1 

At  the  present  day  nobody  reads  President  Griffin's 
sermons,  once  famous  in  Williamstown  and  elsewhere. 
Students  in  modern  schools  of  theology  do  not  study 
them  as  models  of  pulpit  eloquence.  Lacking  range 
and  depth  of  thought  and  the  distinction  of  style 
necessary  to  great  literature,  dwelling  too  constantly 
upon  the  terrors  of  the  law,  these  sermons  had  only 
an  immediate  and  passing  mission,  and  that  in  spite 
of  their  admirable  clearness,  their  driving  force,  their 
resounding  rhetoric,  and  not  infrequent  beauty  of 
phrase. 

Then  the  personality  of  Dr.  Griffin  made  a  profound 
impression  upon  young  men  who  came  to  Williams- 
town.  "The  first  time  I  saw  him,"  wrote  one  of  them, 
"was  at  the  .  .  .  Commencement  of  1822.  ...  I  was 

1  W.  L.  in  The  Adelphi,  May  10,  1832.  The  author  of  this  dreadful 
verse  may  have  been  Willis  Lord  (1833),  afterward  a  distinguished  Pres- 
byterian theological  professor. 

150 


A  SECOND  AND  GREATER  CRISIS 

then  entering  college  and  not  qualified  to  appreciate 
the  literary  character  of  his  performances  on  that 
occasion;  but  I  had  never  felt  such  reverence  at  the 
sight  of  any  man  as  when  I  saw  Dr.  Griffin  in  his  high 
chair  in  the  pulpit,  presiding  over  the  public  exercises. 
His  hair  was  .  .  .  white,  and  his  gigantic  and  sym- 
metrical person,  his  rich,  full  and  penetrating  voice, 
and  the  formal  dignity  of  his  movements,  altogether 
peculiar  to  himself,  gave  what  seemed  to  me  a  wonder- 
ful majesty  to  the  occasion."  l 

Nor  was  this  enthusiasm  confined  to  Subfreshmen. 
The  Rev.  Dr.  Samuel  H.  Cox,  well  known  in  his  time 
as  a  clergyman,  theological  professor,  and  orator, 
attended  the  Commencement  of  1828  and  published 
an  account  of  his  impressions.  "  Once  only,"  he  wrote, 
"had  I  the  pleasure  of  witnessing  the  scenery  of  Com- 
mencement when  Dr.  Griffin  presided  .  .  .  conferred 
the  degrees,  and  figured  as  the  master  of  the  assem- 
bly with  a  grace  and  awe-inspiring  presence,  not  only 
unsurpassed,  but  never  equalled  by  any  other  person- 
age, so  far  as  I  have  had  opportunity  to  observe.  I 
have  .  .  .  witnessed  many  occasions  of  Commence- 
ment in  different  places,  as  well  as  Speakers  and  Presi- 
dents in  Congress,  in  legislatures  and  on  special  occa- 
sions, administering  order  and  ceremony  with  eleva- 
tion and  felicity  of  manner;  but  for  entire  success  and 
almost  histrionic  power  of  display  and  influence,  I 
always  recur  to  that  scene  at  Williams,  though  all 
raining  and  storming  without,  in  1828  as  ...  the  cli- 
max of  majesty,  propriety,  and  excellence."  2 

1  Sprague,  Annals,  iv,  41. 

8  Presbyterian  Quarterly  Review,  vi,  588. 


WILLIAMS  COLLEGE 

Moreover,  in  certain  exercises  of  the  classroom 
President  Griffin  did  not  appear  to  less  advantage 
than  in  the  pulpit  or  upon  the  Commencement  stage. 
This  became  apparent  during  his  brief  service  on  the 
teaching  staff  of  Andover  Theological  Seminary. 
"Our  professor  of  sacred  rhetoric,  Dr.  Griffin,  is  a 
man  of  genius,"  wrote  Timothy  Woodbridge,  then  a 
student  in  the  institution,  February  10,  1810.  "He  is 
unrivalled  as  a  teacher  of  elocution.  Professor  Stuart 
says  that  in  regard  to  the  composition  and  delivery 
of  sermons  he  is  the  best  critic  in  the  United  States."  1 
Another  Andover  colleague  was  quite  as  positive 
in  his  eulogy  —  "It  quickly  became  evident,"  said 
Professor  Woods,  "that  Dr.  Griffin  possessed  extraor- 
dinary qualifications  for  the  work  he  had  under- 
taken. .  .  .  Had  he  devoted  himself  without  interrup- 
tion to  his  official  duties  in  the  Seminary  he  might 
have  reached  the  highest  eminence  and  usefulness 
both  as  a  critic  and  a  lecturer."  2 

And  at  Williamstown  there  were  illuminated  hours 
in  the  classroom  of  President  Griffin,  one  of  which 
occurred  during  a  weekly  exercise  in  elocution  and 
literary  interpretation  which  he  conducted  —  stu- 
dents making  their  own  selections  for  the  reading.  On 
this  occasion  a  member  of  the  class  chose  the  passage 
from  the  third  book  of  "  Paradise  Lost,"  beginning  — 

Hail,  holy  Light,  offspring  of  Heaven  first-born! 

"  During  the  reading  he  seemed  in  rapture  with  the 
poetry  and  .  .  .  after  some  remarks  ...  he  asked  for 

1  Woodbridge,  Autobiography  of  a  Blind  Preacher,  78. 

a  Woods,  History  of  Andover  Theological  Seminary,  149,  150. 

152 


A  SECOND  AND  GREATER  CRISIS 

the  book,  erected  himself  in  his  chair  ...  his  counte- 
nance suffused,  his  voice  mellow  and  tremulous  .  .  . 
and  read  the  passage  with  an  effect,  which,  I  am  sure, 
no  member  of  the  class  can  ever  forget."  1 

In  the  situation  at  Williamstown  there  were  strik- 
ing contrasts  and  anomalies.  Here  we  find  a  man  of 
magnificent  physique  —  he  was  six  feet  and  three 
inches  in-  height  and  weighed  two  hundred  and  fifty 
pounds  —  a  cultivated,  polished,  distinguished  gentle- 
man -  "  any  party  or  social  circle  in  the  world  might 
have  felt  enriched  by  the  accession  of  his  companion- 
ship and  presence" 2  —  set  down  in  a  remote,  primi- 
tive country  town  to  attempt  a  task  which  his 
predecessor  had  abandoned  in  despair.  But  whatever 
anxieties,  struggles  and  failures  a  retrospect  of  the 
closing  period  of  his  active  life  may  have  disclosed, 
the  satisfaction  of  knowing  that  he  had  accomplished 
the  work  which  brought  him  to  Williamstown  —  the 
establishment  of  the  college  upon  a  permanent  foun- 
dation —  was  not  denied  to  President  Griffin. 

1  Sprague,  Annals,  iv,  42. 

2  Rev.  Dr.  S.  H.  Cox,  Presbyterian  Quarterly  Review,  vi,  591. 


CHAPTER  VI 

HIGH  TIDES   IN   THE  CALENDAR  OF   THE  OLDER 
WILLIAMS 

ONE  would  naturally  infer  from  the  records  of  their 
meeting  August  17,  1836,  that  the  Trustees,  on  re- 
ceiving President  Griffin's  resignation,  instantly 
elected  Professor  Mark  Hopkins  as  his  successor. 
These  reticent  records  afford  no  hint  that  he  was  a 
second  and  reluctant  choice;  that  they  offered  the 
position  to  the  Rev.  Dr.  Absalom  Peters,  a  man  inex- 
perienced in  college  work,  who  fortunately  declined 
it.1  What  caused  their  hesitation?  They  undoubtedly 
thought  that  the  President  of  the  college  should  be  a 
clergyman,  and  as  the  professional  studies  of  Professor 
Hopkins  had  been  medical,  that  circumstance  might 
tell  against  him.  Or  possibly,  since  he  was  only  thirty- 
four  years  of  age,  they  considered  him  too  young  for 
the  post.  If  scruples  of  this  sort  troubled  them,  they 
should  have  remembered  that  two  famous  contempo- 
raries—  Eliphalet  Nott  of  Union  and  Francis  Way- 
land  of  Brown  —  became  college  presidents  at  the 
earlier  age  of  thirty-one  and  thirty  respectively. 

The  hesitation  of  1836  was  not  the  first.  Six  years 
earlier,  when  the  death  of  Professor  Porter  made  a 
vacancy  in  the  chair  of  Rhetoric  and  Philosophy, 

1  Perry,  Williamstown  and  Williams  College,  496.  Dr.  Peters,  then 
Secretary  of  the  American  Home  Missionary  Society,  was  afterwards 
pastor  of  the  Congregational  Church  in  Williamstown. 

154 


MARK  HOPKINS 
1836-1872 


HIGH  TIDES  IN  THE  CALENDAR 

President  Griffin  and  some  of  the  Trustees  wished  to 
fill  it  by  the  election  of  the  Rev.  Azariah  Giles  Orton 
(1813),  alumni  orator  at  the  Commencement  of  1830. 
When  the  matter  came  before  the  Board  the  speech  of 
a  recent  member  of  it,  Colonel  Henry  W.  Dwight,  of 
Stockbridge,  is  said  to  have  defeated  the  opposition 
and  carried  the  election  in  favor  of  Mark  Hopkins. 

It  was  not  a  speech  in  the  Board  of  Trustees  which 
broke  the  second  hesitation,  whatever  the  cause  of  it 
may  have  been,  but  a  communication  from  the  Sen- 
iors of  1836.  The  teaching  of  Professor  Hopkins,  they 
remarked  in  this  communication,  had  impressed  them 
profoundly  and  they  ventured  to  make  the  suggestion 
that  future  classes  also  ought  to  have  the  benefit  of  it. 
"  If  the  boys  want  him,"  the  Rev.  Dr.  Shepard,  vice- 
president  of  the  Board,  is  reported  to  have  said  when 
the  letter  was  read,  "let  them  have  him."  1 

In  1826  the  election  of  Francis  Wayland  to  the 
vacant  presidency  of  Brown  University  was  urged  by 
leading  Baptists,  by  prominent  Congregationalists, 
by  influential  newspapers  in  New  York,  Massachu- 
setts, and  Connecticut.2  The  chief  partisans  and 
sponsors  of  Mark  Hopkins  ten  years  later  were  the 
thirty- two  young  men  in  the  graduating  class  of  1836. 

The  long  career  of  the  new  President,  in  spite  of 
numerous  and  urgent  calls  to  important  positions 
elsewhere,  lay  almost  wholly  in  Berkshire  County. 
He  was  born  at  Stockbridge  in  1802,  and  like  his  two 
immediate  predecessors  was  the  son  of  a  farmer.  At 

1  Perry,   Williamstown  and  Williams  College,  496.    Carter,   Mark 
Hopkins,  60.   "  The  appointment  meets  with  the  approbation  of  every 
student."   (American  Traveller,  August  23,  1836.) 

2  Murray,  Francis  Wayland,  62. 

155 


WILLIAMS  COLLEGE 

the  age  of  four  he  began  to  attend  school.  Though  he 
is  said  to  have  astonished  his  teacher  by  a  precocious 
ability  to  read,  arithmetic  gravelled  him  badly.  "I 
well  remember  when  I  commenced  the  study,"  he  said 
in  an  address  at  Lenox  on  the  "Effect  of  Common 
Schools,"  "  taking  my  slate  the  first  day  to  the  master 
to  have  him  set  me  a  sum.  He  immediately  wrote  six 
or  eight  long  rows  of  figures.  I  took  the  slate  and  for 
several  days,  in  the  intervals  of  reading  and  writing, 
looked  upon  that  sum  in  silent  despair  without  know- 
ing how  to  begin.  ...  On  reaching  at  last  compound 
addition  I  well  remember  the  mysterious  look  of  those 
figures  placed  over  the  denominators  by  which  I  was 
to  carry  without  knowing  why  or  scarcely  what  carry- 
ing was.  The  same  feeling  of  mystery  and  difficulty 
was  continued  more  or  less  through  the  book." l 

In  1816  the  Rev.  Edwin  W.  Dwight,  author  of  the 
"Life  of  Obookiah,"  visited  the  Hopkins  family  at 
Stockbridge  and  was  attracted  to  the  eldest  son,  then 
fourteen  years  old.  "  Mark,"  he  wrote,  "  is  a  fine  boy, 
grown  very  much,  a  noble  scholar,  and  I  suspect  ought 
to  be  educated."  2  Five  years  and  a  half  elapsed  be- 
fore the  date  of  his  matriculation  in  college.  How 
much  of  this  period  he  devoted  to  preparatory  studies 
is  uncertain,  as  other  vocations  interrupted  them.  For 
a  time  he  lived  at  Green  River,  a  town  twelve  miles 
from  Stockbridge,  which  took  its  name  from  the  lit- 
tle stream,  "lonely,  lovely  and  still,"  celebrated  in  one 
of  Bryant's  earlier  poems.  Here  he  was  in  the  serv- 
ice of  the  blind  minister,  Timothy  Woodbridge.  "I 

1  American  Advocate,  November  17,  1830. 

2  MS.  letter,  April  18,  1816,  in  R.  H.  W.  Dwight's  Collection. 

156 


HIGH  TIDES  IN  THE  CALENDAR 

always  kept  a  gentle  and  efficient  horse,  "  the  latter 
wrote,  "and  a  boy  to  drive,  who  had  also  been  well 
educated,  so  that  he  could  read  and  write  for  me. 
Everybody  who  depends  on  hearing  reading  knows 
that  a  boy  is  commonly  a  poor  reader  and  a  worse 
writer;  but  I  was  very  lucky.  .  .  .  My  first  boy  .  .  . 
at  Green  River  was  Mark  Hopkins  .  .  .  and  nobody 
will  doubt  his  ability  to  read  and  write  well  at  seven- 


teen." 


In  the  spring  of  1820  the  blind  minister's  boy  went 
to  Mecklenburg,  Virginia,  where  for  eighteen  months 
he  taught  a  private  school.  At  first  this  new  experi- 
ence interested  and  contented  him.  "  I  need  nothing 
that  any  mortal  can  give  me,"  he  wrote  July  4,  1820, 
"except  money."  But  the  isolation  and  remoteness 
of  the  place  —  "There  is  not  a  person  of  my  age  with 
whom  I  am  acquainted  and  would  associate  within 
ten  miles  '  '  —  and  the  fact  that  the  school  was  small 
and  elementary  —  the  exercises  soon  becoming  a 
"dull  iteration"  —  led  inevitably  to  weariness  and 
discontent.  And  toward  the  close  of  the  eighteen 
months  —  his  last  letter  is  dated  August  17,  1821  — 
he  wrote  that  "I  see  comparatively  nobody"  and 
"have  sunk  into  a  state  of  indifference  in  regard  to 
study."  2 

Returning  from  Virginia,  Mark  Hopkins  entered 
Williams  as  a  Sophomore  in  the  autumn  of  1821  and 
graduated  in  1824  with  the  highest  honors.  The  next 
year  he  spent  in  teaching  at  Stockbridge  and  in  the 

1  Woodbridge,  Autobiography  of  a  Blind  Minister,  167. 

2  Mark  Hopkins,  ten  manuscript  letters,  in  possession  of  Colonel 
Archibald  Hopkins. 

157 


WILLIAMS  COLLEGE 

study  of  medicine  at  Pittsfield.  Then  from  1825  to 
1827  he  was  tutor  in  the  college  and  brought  his  first 
period  of  academic  work  to  a  close  with  a  Master's 
oration  on  "  Mystery."  This  oration,  though  scarcely 
appealing  to  the  average  auditor,  —  the  reporter  of 
the  local  newspaper  failed  to  notice  it  in  his  account 
of  the  exercises,  —  interested  Professor  Silliman,  of 
Yale,  who  happened  to  be  present,  and  was  subse- 
quently published  in  his  "American  Journal  of  Sci- 
ence and  Arts."  After  a  period  of  study  at  the  Berk- 
shire Medical  Institution  he  received  the  degree  of 
M.D.  and  began  the  practice  of  medicine  in  New  York 
City.  The  death  of  Professor  Porter  and  his  election 
to  the  chair  of  Rhetoric  and  Moral  Philosophy  turned 
the  current  of  his  life  in  another  direction.1 

The  induction  took  place  Thursday,  September  15, 
1836,  —  the  first  day  of  the  college  year.  A  small 
audience,  made  up  of  Trustees,  professors,  students, 
and  people  of  the  village,  assembled  in  the  chapel. 
The  Rev.  Dr.  Field,  of  Stockbridge,  offered  prayer; 
Daniel  Noble  Dewey,  of  Williamstown,  read  the  min- 
utes of  the  Board;  the  Rev.  Dr.  Shepard,  of  Lenox, 
"performed  the  act  of  inauguration"  and  delivered 
the  charge.  It  was  a  quiet,  undemonstrative,  local 
affair,  in  sharp  contrast  to  the  exaggerated  modern 
custom  of  inaugurating  college  presidents  "with  a 
degree  of  ceremonial  pomp  that  suggests  a  world 
event  of  the  first  magnitude."  2 

The  subject  of  Dr.  Hopkins'  address  on  this  pro- 

1  "  Dr.  Mark  Hopkins,  of  the  City  of  New  York,  formerly  a  tutor  in 
the  College,  was  appointed  to  the  Professorship  of  Moral  Philosophy 
and  Rhetoric."  (American  Advocate,  September  8,  1830.) 

*  New  Republic,  September  25,  1915. 

158 


HIGH  TIDES  IN  THE  CALENDAR 

vincial  and  unacclaimed  occasion  was  "Education  in 
general,  and  more  particularly  .  .  .  collegiate  educa- 
tion, as  adapted  ...  to  meet  the  wants  of  the  com- 
munity."1 If  the  latter  be  properly  organized  and 
adj usted,  he  said, ' '  we  shall  have  physical  vigor,  knowl- 
edge and  intellectual  power,  refined  taste  and  moral 
excellence;  in  other  words,  we  shall  have  formed  the 
mind  to  the  love  and  pursuit  of  truth,  of  beauty  and  of 
holiness."2  After  setting  forth  "the  high  mission" 
of  colleges,  he  proceeded  to  inquire  how  far  they  ful- 
filled it,  and  to  consider  certain  adverse  views  which 
had  become  current.  These  adverse  views  were  that 
they  impair  the  physical  vitality,  cultivate  a  vision- 
ary, impracticable  temper,  follow  aristocratic  ideals, 
and  "do  not  teach  manners."  In  regard  to  the  last 
objection  he  confessed  that  "this  is  not  one  of  the 
things  for  which  we  give  a  diploma."  Yet  he  did  not 
underrate  their  importance,  and  doubtless  would  have 
concurred  with  Viscount  Haldane,  who,  addressing 
the  Associated  Societies  of  the  University  of  Edin- 
burgh in  1913,  urged  all  their  members  to  read  Emer- 
son's "admirable  essay"  on  this  subject.3 

A  sober,  comprehending,  unelated  tone  pervades 
this  prelude  to  Mark  Hopkins'  career  as  President  of 
Williams  College.  "I  enter  upon  it,"  he  was  careful 
to  say,  "with  no  excitement  of  novelty,  with  no  buzz 
of  expectation,  with  no  accession  of  influence  from 
abroad."  To  build  up  "what  would  be  called  a  great 
institution"  never  entered  into  his  plans.  That 
"here  may  be  health  and  cheerful  study  and  kind 

1  Hopkins,  Miscellaneous  Essays  and  Discourses,  232. 

*  Ibid.,  243.  •  Haldane,  The  Conduct  of  Life,  19. 

159 


WILLIAMS  COLLEGE 

feelings  and  pure  morals "  was  the  consummation  he 
devoutly  wished.1 

Certain  important  questions  did  not  come  to  the 
surface  at  all  in  the  inaugural  —  questions  of  endow- 
ment, of  buildings,  and  of  apparatus.  President  Hop- 
kins knew  well  enough  that  the  college  had  urgent 
need  of  all  these  things,  but  he  rated  his  genius  as  a 
solicitor  of  funds  very  low.  This  disagreeable  business 
he  hoped  to  transact  eventually  by  indirection  —  by 
building  up  an  educational  institution  of  such  repute 
that  the  public  would  voluntarily  provide  an  ade- 
quate support.  In  1836  the  theory  was  not  practi- 
cable, and  barely  four  months  after  the  inauguration 
he  went  to  Boston  for  the  purpose  of  securing  state 
aid.  The  legislative  committee  to  which  his  petition 
was  referred  made  a  favorable  report.  But  before  any 
action  had  been  taken  another  Berkshire  petition,  of 
a  different  complexion,  appeared  on  Beacon  Hill:  — 

To  the  Hon.  Senate  and  House  of  Representatives  Of  the 
Commonwealth  of  Massachusetts 

Your  Petitioners  Inhabitants  Of  the  Town  of  Williams- 
town  County  of  Berkshire  and  Commonwealth  of  Mas- 
sachusetts 

Do  Petition  to  you  Hon.  Body  to  Repeal  the  Law  that 
Exemps  the  College  Corporation  from  Taxation  as  there 
is  Near  one  hundred  thousand  Dollars  In  s'd  town  of 
Williamstown  Exemped  from  Taxation  Belonging  to  the 
s'd  Corporation  it  having  in  Lands,  Mortgages,  Moneys 
&c  and  that  the  taxes  in  s'd  town  are  Oppressive  on  the 
Taxible  Inhabitants  of  s'd  town.  Your  petion  there- 
fore Prays  that  they  may  be  h  heard  Concerning  the 
Same.  .  .  . 

1  Hopkins,  Miscellaneous  Essays  and  Discourses,  253. 
160 


HIGH  TIDES  IN  THE  CALENDAR 

Col.  Waterman  Sir  Pleas  present  this  to  the  house  as 
soon  as  you  Receive  it 
It  is  Signed  by 

John   P.  Jordan  &  95  others.1 

March  25  the  Legislature  voted  that  it  was  "inex- 
pedient to  legislate"  upon  the  subject  of  college  taxa- 
tion, and  four  days  afterwards  postponed  indefinitely 
the  request  of  Williams  for  state  aid.2 

Notwithstanding  this  rebuff,  President  Hopkins  in 
1839  again  sought  financial  assistance  from  the  Legis- 
lature. The  second  petition,  as  well  as  the  first,  is  in 
his  handwriting  and  dated  January  12.  In  their  re- 
port, the  committee  in  charge  of  it  rehearsed  with  con- 
siderable detail  the  history  of  the  college.  "  It  is  situ- 
ated," they  remarked,  "in  a  part  of  the  State  which 
enables  it  to  afford  peculiar  facilities  for  giving  the 
means  of  education  to  the  middling  classes  and  at  the 
same  time  is  beyond  the  sphere  of  the  rich."  The 
petition  was  finally  referred  to  the  next  Legislature  — 
a  decorous  method  of  killing  it. 

Whatever  financial  emergency  there  may  have  been 
in  1837  and  1839,  a  more  serious  and  alarming  one 
arose  in  1841,  when  the  old  East  College  burned 
down.  Though  recent  experiences  could  hardly  be 
thought  reassuring,  President  Hopkins  appealed  to 
the  Legislature  once  more  in  behalf  of  the  college 
which,  he  said,  was  "much  resorted  to  for  education 
by  individuals  of  small  pecuniary  means."  His  peti- 
tion, dated  Boston,  January  14,  1842,  was  accom- 
panied by  nine  auxiliary  petitions  from  citizens  of  as 
many  Berkshire  towns  —  Great  Barrington,  Peru, 
1  Mass.  H.R.  Fiks  (1837),  229.  »  Ibid.,  310. 

161 


WILLIAMS  COLLEGE 

Stockbridge,  Sheffield,  Pittsfield,  Lenox,  Plainfield, 
Lee,  and  Williamstown.  But  the  formidable  array  of 
documents  failed  to  accomplish  anything.  The  legis- 
lative committee  recommended  an  appropriation  of 
$12,000,  which  the  Legislature  refused  to  make.1  In 
this  grave  emergency  graduates  and  friends  of  the  col- 
lege came  to  the  rescue  and  raised  $8949,  a  sum  which, 
with  an  unexpected  gift  of  $5000  from  Amos  Law- 
rence in  1844,  carried  it  safely  over  the  crisis.2 

Though  relatively  a  secondary  matter  during  the 
fourth  administration,  the  campus  was  by  no  means 
wholly  neglected.  Nine  new  buildings  were  then 
erected  —  the  Hopkins  Astronomical  Observatory 
(1837),  South  College  (1842),  East  College  (1842), 
Lawrence  Hall  (1846),  Kellogg  Hall  (1847),  Jackson 
Hall  (1855),  Alumni  Hall  Chapel  (1859),  Goodrich 
Hall  (1864),  and  College  Hall  (1872).  Of  the  last  five 
buildings  in  this  list,  four  became  obsolete  and  were 
pulled  down  after  an  average  life  of  hardly  more  than 
fifty  years,  and  the  single  survivor  among  them  — 
Alumni  Hall  Chapel  —  has  lost  its  original  name  and 
most  of  its  original  uses.  In  1905  it  became  Goodrich 
Hall  and  is  now  devoted  chiefly  to  recitation  and 
seminar  purposes.  On  the  completion  and  dedication 
of  this  chapel  the  college  withdrew  from  its  connec- 
tion with  the  village  church,  which  had  continued 
with  little  interruption  since  I793.3  President  Fitch 

1  Mass.  H.R.  Files  (1842),  1159. 

2  The  Trustees  made  two  subsequent  appeals  to  the  Legislature  for 
aid  and  succeeded  in  both  of  them,  securing  $25,000  in  1849  and  $75,000 
in  1868.  The  college  first  and  last  has  received  from  the  State  $150,500. 
(Trustees'  Gift  Book.) 

8  Dr.  Durfee  says  that  "in  1809  public  worship  was  attended  on  the 
Sabbath  in  the  chapel."   (History  of  Williams  College,  99.) 

162 


HIGH  TIDES  IN  THE  CALENDAR 

and  his  successors  supplied  the  village  pulpit  for  a 
part  of  the  time,  the  amount  of  service  varying  at 
different  periods. 

None  of  the  earlier  buildings  have  histories  of  spe- 
cial interest  except  Kellogg  Hall  and  the  Hopkins 
Astronomical  Observatory.  The  former  stood  a  few 
rods  southeast  of  West  College  —  an  inconsiderable 
brick  structure  three  stories  high,  the  first  of  them 
containing  two  large  rooms  where  the  recitations  of 
the  Freshmen  and  Sophomore  classes  were  held  for 
many  years.  If  the  experiences,  academic  and  other, 
associated  with  them  could  be  fully  recovered,  the 
story  would  not  be  a  dull  one.  James  Hulme  Canfield 
recalled  some  of  them  in  his  preface  to  "The  Class  of 
1868  after  Thirty-Five  Years."  "Do  you  remember 
our  first  recitation,"  he  wrote,  "in  the  room  on  the 
ground  floor  west  side  —  improperly  lighted  with 
hanging  kerosene  lamps?  Or  the  afternoon  of  the 
early  fall  when  the  Sophs  broke  all  the  windows,  and 
we  poured  out  of  the  west  door  led  by  Horace  Henry 
...  —  our  first  conflict?  Or  the  morning  of  the  next 
June,  when  we  found  the  room  full  of  hay,  stored 
there  during  the  previous  rainy  night,  in  our  desire 
to  'save  it*  for  the  college?  Can  you  ever  forget  the 
recitations  in  the  room  on  the  east  side,  in  Sopho- 
more year?  when  Latin  and  Greek  first  came  to  have 
position ;  when  Perry  took  us  through  Wilson's  '  Out- 
lines of  History '  —  concluding  with  his  four  lectures 
and  the  renowned  enquiry  as  to  the  whereabouts  of 
one  Grouchy,  on  a  somewhat  memorable  occasion; 
when  'Tat'  was  alternately  locked  out  or  barred  in, 
by  a  class  which  always  presumed  upon  his  patience 

163 


WILLIAMS  COLLEGE 

and  good  humor.  And  do  you  remember  the  weekly 
class  prayer-meetings  held  in  each  of  those  rooms; 
in  which  the  boys,  first  as  strangers,  then  as  friends, 
came  very  near  to  each  other,  and  we  talked  together 
soberly  and  earnestly,  if  not  altogether  wisely,  of  the 
better  life  and  the  higher  thoughts  and  the  more  gen- 
erous service  .  .  .  possible  in  even  the  weakest  of  us, 
under  the  love  and  providence  of  God?" 

The  Astronomical  Observatory  was  begun  in  1836 
and  dedicated  the  next  year.  Professor  Albert  Hop- 
kins visited  Europe  in  1834  and  bought  of  Trough  ton 
a  transit  instrument.  But  there  was  no  building  in 
Williamstown  suitable  for  the  uses  of  this  instrument 
and  he  immediately  set  about  the  task  of  providing 
one.  He  succeeded  in  raising  four  hundred  dollars  in 
Boston  for  the  enterprise  and  that  gave  him  sufficient 
encouragement  to  begin  the  work.  "The  practical 
part  was  commenced  by  several  of  us  shouldering 
our  implements  and  proceeding  to  a  flint  quarry  em- 
bedded in  a  spur  of  the  Green  Mountains  lying  a  mile 
or  two  northeast  of  the  college.  The  impression  at  the 
time  was  that  the  observatory,  like  some  of  the  old 
castles,  was  to  crown  the  summit  of  the  mountains. 
This  idea,  however,  was  relieved  by  our  returning 
with  a  load  of  stone,  which  was  thrown  off  in  the  col- 
lege yard."  l  At  their  annual  meeting  in  1839  the 
alumni  passed  an  eminently  appropriate  resolution  to 
the  effect  that  the  new  building  finished  and  dedicated 
in  1837,  should  be  called  the  Hopkins  Observatory.2 

1  Boston  Courier,  March  30,  1841. 

2  The  observatory  cost,  exclusive  of  fixtures,  $2075.  Of  this  sum  the 
Trustees  furnished  $1200,  the  "  liberal-hearted  "  Boston  friends  $400,  and 
Professor  Hopkins  himself,  $475.  (Records  of  the  Trustees,  August  20, 1 839.) 

164 


HIGH  TIDES  IN  THE  CALENDAR 

It  barely  missed  the  honor  of  being  the  first  in  the 
United  States  —  that  distinction  belonging  to  one, 
fairly  furnished,  though  unsubstantial  and  tempo- 
rary, which  the  University  of  North  Carolina  built 
in  1831. 1 

Sunday,  October  17, 1841,  an  alarm  of  fire  broke  up 
the  afternoon  services  at  the  village  church  —  serv- 
ices which  the  students  attended.  It  turned  out  that 
the  old  East  College  was  burning.  The  suites  all  had 
fireplaces  and  some  careless  fellow,  who  lived  on  the 
fourth  floor,  "  having  used  the  broom  before  leaving 
set  it  in  the  wood-closet  with  fire  in  it."  2 

The  young  men,  reaching  the  scene,  made  a  wild 
dash  to  save  the  contents  of  the  building.  In  the  ex- 
citement books,  clothing,  and  furniture  were  handled 
roughly  —  thrown  into  a  promiscuous  heap  on  the 
green.  The  disaster,  though  sufficiently  grave,  did  not 
interrupt  the  usual  exercises  of  the  college  for  more 
than  a  single  day.  October  27,  the  Trustees  met  and 
voted  to  erect  two  buildings  —  South  and  East  Col- 
leges —  and  in  the  course  of  the  next  year  they  were 
completed.  In  1905  South  College  was  modernized 
and  renamed  Fayerweather  Hall. 

On  the  whole  the  college  fared  better  in  the  matter 
of  buildings  than  of  equipment.  The  latter  was  still 
meagre.  An  incident,  which  belongs  to  the  year  of  the 
fire,  1841,  illustrates  one  phase  of  the  struggle  to  en- 

1  Battle,  History  of  the  University  of  North  Carolina,  I,  335,  336. 

2  Records  of  the  Trustees,  October  22,  1841.   "  Last  Sabbath  went  to 
Pownal.  On  my  return  saw  East  College  burning.  Felt  an  affection  for 
the  building  where  I  had  so  many  happy  occasions."  (Albert  Hopkins, 
Diary,  October  27,  1841,  in  Sewall's  Life  of  Professor  Albert  Hopkins, 
180.) 

165 


WILLIAMS  COLLEGE 

large  it.  "I  have  incurred  an  expense  of  near  $800, " 
wrote  President  Hopkins,  "for  a  manikin."  l  The 
Trustees  advanced  this  sum  on  the  security  of  his  per- 
sonal note,  and  he  attempted  to  raise  money  to  pay 
it  by  a  series  of  public  lectures,  the  first  of  which  was 
delivered  at  Stockbridge.  He  made  the  trip  from  Wil- 
liamstown,  a  journey  of  thirty  miles,  on  a  winter  day. 
The  box  containing  the  manikin  "so  filled  up  the 
sleigh  that  the  lecturer  had  to  ride  with  his  feet  hang- 
ing outside  of  the  vehicle."  2  While  the  lectures  inter- 
ested those  who  heard  them,  they  do  not  seem  to  have 
been  a  pecuniary  success,  and  the  Trustees  voted  a  few 
months  later  to  cancel  the  eight-hundred-dollar  note.3 

Requirements  for  admission  during  the  period  were 
gradually  increased  —  algebra  through  simple  equa- 
tions being  added  to  them  in  1842-43;  Greek  prosody 
in  1846-47;  two  books  of  the  Anabasis  which  dis- 
placed the  Greek  Testament  in  1856-57;  one  book  of 
the  Iliad  or  Odyssey  in  1858-59;  two  books  of  geom- 
etry and  the  first  twelve  chapters  of  Arnold's  Latin 
Prose  in  1861-62;  the  third  and  fourth  books  of  the 
Anabasis  and  Outlines  of  Greek  and  Roman  History 
in  1871-72.  Then  the  growth  of  the  curriculum  pro- 
ceeded along  natural  lines  and  by  easy  stages.  The 
department  of  Political  Economy  was  established  in 
1836;  of  Astronomy  in  1838;  of  American  Literature 
in  1842;  of  Geology  in  1852;  of  German  in  1854;  and 
of  Mineralogy  in  1859.  Moreover,  the  French  depart- 
ment, summarily  "abolished"  in  1799,  and  the  de- 

1  Mark  Hopkins,  MS.  letter  to  the  Rev.  Dr.  Rufus  Anderson,  Octo- 
ber 9,  1841. 

f  Carter,  Mark  Hopkins,  65. 

1  Records  of  the  Trustees,  August  16,  1842. 

166 


HIGH  TIDES  IN  THE  CALENDAR 

partment  of  Latin,  founded  in  1835  and  merged  the 
next  year  with  that  of  Ancient  Languages,  in  1853 
were  reestablished. 

A  serious  effort  to  stiffen  the  courses,  old  and  new/ 
took  the  shape  in  1855-56  of  written  biennial  exanv^ 
inations  at  the  close  of  the  Sophomore  year.  These 
examinations,  held  in  Alumni  Chapel  Hall  every  other 
day  for  a  fortnight,  lasting  four  hours  and  including 
all  the  studies  pursued  in  the  first  half  of  the  college 
course,  were  a  source  of  anxiety  if  not  disaster  to 
eleven  generations  of  Sophomores.1  Great  was  the 
contrast  between  the  beginning  and  the  ending  of  the 
ordeal.  On  the  first  morning  of  the  dreaded  fortnight 
the  class  marched  to  the  Hall  in  procession,  two 
abreast,  singing  "Biennial  is  a  bore"  to  that  melan- 
choly old  tune  "Lenox."  At  the  conclusion  of  it  there 
was  a  "Jubilee  Supper,"  for  which  appropriate  origi- 
nal songs  must  be  provided.  Eighty-eight  are  still 
extant,  most  of  them  being  of  no  present  account,  as 
they  ring  changes  upon  narrow  and  transitory  themes 
suggested  by  the  scenes,  incidents,  and  consequences 
of  the  examinations.  Other  notes  were  sometimes 
heard ;  as  — 

Towering  around  us 

The  mountains  stand, 
Lifting  their  summits 

Massive  and  grand; 
Resting  in  beauty 

The  green  valley  lies, 

1  "  If  any  student  of  the  present  thinks  it  was  particularly  easy  to  get 
through  the  Williams  of  fifty  years  ago,  let  him  try  to  pass  these  exami- 
nations at  the  end  of  his  Sophomore  year."  (Raymond,  Fiftieth  Anni- 
versary Report,  Class  of  '62,  n.) 

167 


WILLIAMS  COLLEGE 

Spanned  by  the  glory 
Of  azure  skies. 

Peaceful  the  summers 

Glide  on  their  way; 
Glorious  the  mountains 

E'en  in  decay; 
Gentle  the  breezes 

Of  the  gladsome  spring; 
Joyful  the  pleasures 

The  winters  bring.1 

When  the  biennials  were  abolished  in  1866-67,  the 
Sophomores  of  that  year  celebrated  the  event  in  a 
triumphant  ode  of  eight  stanzas,  the  last  of  which  ran 
on  this  wise:  — 

Biennial f s  dead  and  we  are  free, 

Biennial 's  had  its  day, 
There's  not  a  man  in  all  the  class 

Who  wished  for  it  to  stay.2 

Whatever  effect  these  examinations  may  have  had 
in  stimulating  scholarship,  —  and  it  seems  to  have 
been  considerable,  —  they  certainly  induced  "Pega- 
sus to  take  the  air."  If  Williams  students  could  write 
satisfactory  biennial  songs,  why  should  they  not 
write  other  sorts  as  well?  Their  earlier  repertoire  had 
been  almost  exclusively  a  borrowed  one.  It  com- 
prised little  more  than  "Gaudeamus  Igitur,"  "  In- 
teger Vitae,"  and  a  few  jingles  like  "Landlords,  fill 
your  flowing  bowls,"  and  "Go  tell  Aunt  Nancy  her 
old  grey  goose  is  dead."  "Williams  Songs"  —  a  thin 
volume  with  forty-eight  pieces,  edited  by  Washington 

1  Biennial  Songs  of  the  Class  of  '61,  II. 

*  Cooley,  The  Class  of  '69  after  Forty  Years,  9. 

168 


HIGH  TIDES  IN  THE  CALENDAR 

Gladden  and  dedicated  to  William  Cullen  Bryant 
—  was  an  immediate  consequence  of  the  new  verse- 
making  impulse. 

When  college  began  in  the  autumn  of  1836  there 
were  five  full  professors  on  the  faculty  staff  —  Eben- 
ezer  Kellogg,  Ebenezer  Emmons,  Edward  Lasell, 
Joseph  Alden,  and  Albert  Hopkins,  all  of  whom  came 
down  from  the  former  dispensation. 

In  1844  Professor  Kellogg,  who  had  been  at  his  post 
twenty-nine  years,  was  compelled  by  ill-health  to  re- 
sign. An  accurate,  painstaking  scholar,  a  writer  of 
ability,  greatly  useful  in  the  executive  affairs  of  the 
college,  he  lacked  the  intellectual  scope  and  vigor,  the 
clarity  and  attractiveness  of  speech  necessary  to  give 
the  classics  special  prominence  in  the  Williams  of  his 
day. 

Edward  Lasell  (1828)  died  in  1852,  after  twenty- 
one  years  of  service  as  tutor  and  professor  of  chemis- 
try. He  was  a  man  of  attractive  personality,  who 
brought  to  his  work  contagious  enthusiasm  and  effec- 
tive gifts  for  exposition.  Moreover,  having  bought 
the  " Sloan  place,"  —  now  the  President's  house,  — 
he  lived  in  a  style  quite  new  to  the  time  and  commu- 
nity. According  to  Judge  Danforth  "  he  was  the  first 
man  to  set  up  an  establishment  of  horses  and  carriages 
in  town  with  a  colored  driver."  1 

The  name  of  Ebenezer  Emmons,  a  pupil  of  Chester 
Dewey  and  Amos  Eaton,  appears  in  the  annual  cata- 
logues as  lecturer  or  professor  from  1 828  to  1 863.  Dur- 
ing these  thirty-three  years  he  taught  chemistry,  nat- 
ural history,  geology,  and  mineralogy.  Yet  he  gave 
1  Danforth,  Reminiscences,  95. 

169 


WILLIAMS  COLLEGE 

only  a  part  of  his  time  to  college  work.  In  1836  Gov- 
ernor Marcy  appointed  him  one  of  four  experts  to 
make  a  survey  of  the  State  of  New  York,  and  the 
great  work  was  not  completed  until  1854.  I*1  con- 
nection with  the  survey  he  not  only  brought  the 
Adirondack  region  to  the  attention  of  the  public,  but 
also  announced  a  discovery  in  geology,  which  he 
called  the  "Taconic  System."  This  alleged  discovery 
quickly  blew  up  a  tempest  of  dissent  and  ridicule.  "  I 
told  the  Doctor  on  one  occasion/*  said  Albert  Hop- 
kins, "  that  all  the  authorities  were  combining  against 
him.  He  answered  in  his  dry  way,  '  I  shall  floor  them 
yet.'"  l  And  the  confidence  of  the  good  doctor  was 
not  wholly  misplaced.  Though  changes  may  have 
been  made  in  terminology  and  classification,  later 
investigations  confirmed  the  accuracy  of  his  observa- 
tions. 

A  quiet,  unpretending,  homespun  sort  of  man, 
Professor  Emmons  was  not  an  effective  teacher  for  a 
class  of  miscellaneous  students.  To  them  his  exposi- 
tions in  geology  or  mineralogy,  however  clear,  method- 
ical, and  learned,  seemed  remote  and  dull.  He  had 
all  the  disabilities  of  the  specialist  dealing  with  imma- 
ture and  indifferent  scholars.2  But  in  the  field,  ac- 
companied by  a  few  interested  students,  he  was  an- 
other man.  The  prosy  lecturer  of  the  classroom  now 
became  an  enthusiast,  quick  in  perception,  fluent  in 
speech,  felicitous  in  description  and  generalization. 
On  one  occasion  his  zeal  led  to  what  might  have  been 
a  serious  accident.  "  Attracted  by  a  vein  of  fluor-spar 

1  Williams  Quarterly,  June,  1864. 

*  Yeomans,  Pioneers  of  Science  in  America,  349. 

170 


HIGH  TIDES  IN  THE  CALENDAR 

on  a  cliff  overhanging  a  lake  he  climbed  to  it  and  con- 
tinued the  strokes  of  his  chisel  to  detach  the  spar,  until 
the  whole  superincumbent  mass  gave  way  and  he  was 
precipitated  with  it  into  the  lake  twenty-five  feet 
below.  The  great  depth  of  the  water  probably  saved 
his  life.  Presently,  when  the  cloud  of  dust  subsided, 
his  companions  saw  him  come  to  the  surface,  and 
strike  out  for  the  shore  which  he  reached  compara- 
tively uninjured."  * 

In  1851  Dr.  Emmons  was  appointed  State  Geol- 
ogist of  North  Carolina,  and  published  three  vol- 
umes of  valuable  reports,  one  of  them  appearing  in 
1856,  another  in  1858,  and  the  last  in  1860.  But  the 
agitation  which  preceded  the  Civil  War  began  to  dis- 
turb him.  "I  cannot  but  look  with  great  fear,"  he 
wrote  a  Northern  friend,  "upon  the  results  of  agita- 
tion and  it  unfits  me  for  work."2  The  anxiety  and 
isolation  doubtless  shortened  his  life,  for  he  died  at 
Brunswick,  Georgia,  October  I,  1863.  His  place 
among  the  greater  men  of  science  would  seem  to  be 
secure,  since,  in  the  words  of  Jules  Marcou,  he  was 
"the  founder  of  American  stratigraphy  and  the  first 
discoverer  of  primordial  fauna  in  any  country."  3 

Joseph  Alden,  a  graduate  of  Union  College  in  the 
class  of  1829,  student  of  theology  in  Princeton  Sem- 
inary and  tutor  in  Princeton  College,  came  to  Wil- 
liamstown  in  1834  as  pastor  of  the  Congregational 
Church.  The  next  year  the  Trustees  elected  him 
Professor  of  Latin  and  the  year  following  transferred 
him  to  the  chair  of  Political  Economy,  which  he 

1  Albert  Hopkins,  in  Williams  Quarterly,  June,  1864,  261. 
*  Marcou,  American  Geologist,  14.  3  Ibid.,  i. 

171 


WILLIAMS  COLLEGE 

occupied  until  1854,  when  he  became  President  of 
Lafayette.  A  man  of  culture,  an  attractive  speaker, 
and  a  considerable  author,  —  the  list  of  his  publica- 
tions, mostly  Sunday-School  books  and  short  sketches, 
during  the  twenty  years  of  his  residence  in  Williams- 
town,  reached  a  total  of  fifty-four  titles,  — he  was  also 
a  progressive  and  stimulating  instructor.  "Your 
counsel  and  encouragement/'  he  wrote  in  dedicating 
one  of  his  books  to  Joseph  White  (1836),  the  Secre- 
tary of  Education  in  Massachusetts,  "led  me  to 
give  in  my  college  teaching  greater  prominence  to 
studies  calculated  to  prepare  young  men  for  their 
duties  as  citizens  than  is  usual."  l  And  William  Cullen 
Bryant,  who  contributed  an  introduction  to  another 
volume,  called  attention  to  Professor  Alden's  singular 
"facility  in  teaching  his  pupils  to  think."  2 

In  the  gallery  of  Williams  professors,  Albert  Hop- 
kins is  a  striking  and  distinguished  figure  —  "tall, 
erect,  dignified  .  .  .  with  a  frame  that  would  have 
suited  an  athlete,  and  a  head  such  as  the  Greek  sculp- 
tors gave  to  their  great  orators  .  .  .  and  eyes  of  un- 
matched brilliancy." 3  The  words  of  President  Chad- 
bourne  at  his  funeral  in  1872  should  stand  unabated 
and  unqualified:  "In  later  life  when  age  had  whitened 
his  locks,  and  moral  conflicts  and  triumphs  had  deep- 
ened the  lines  upon  his  face,  he  stood  before  us  a  form 
of  dignity  and  beauty  which  no  ideal  of  patriarch  or 
prophet  ever  surpassed."  4 

1  Science  of  Government  in  Connection  with  American  Institutions,  1866. 

2  Studies  in  Bryant,  7. 

3  Professor  J.  L.  T.  Phillips,  quoted  in  Perry's  Williamstown  and 
Williams  College,  582. 

4  Chadbourne,  The  Hope  of  the  Righteous,  17. 

172 


HIGH  TIDES  IN  THE  CALENDAR 

This  younger  brother  of  Mark  Hopkins  joined  the 
teaching  staff  of  the  college  in  1827  and  continued  in 
service  the  rest  of  his  life  —  a  period  of  forty-five 
years.  In  the  early  part  of  this  period,  at  least,  he 
threw  himself  with  enthusiasm  into  the  work  of  his 
department,  organized  the  scientific  expedition  to 
Nova  Scotia  in  1835,  and  built  the  Astronomical 
Observatory  in  1837.  Later,  and  partly  in  conse- 
quence of  heavy  domestic  sorrows,  his  enthusiasm 
waned  and  his  classroom  did  not  always  escape  the 
blight  of  dulness.  The  quality  which  set  Albert  Hop- 
kins apart  from  all  Williams  professors,  past  and 
present,  was  a  certain  indubitable  strain  of  religious 
genius  —  refined,  poetical,  intense.  A  striking  and 
tangible  evidence  of  this  genius  is  seen  in  the  noon 
prayer  meetings  which  he  began  in  1832.  Antedating 
by  two  years  the  organization  of  a  college  church,  it 
was  hoped  that  they  might  prove  a  defence  against 
the  easily  besetting  sins  of  indifference  and  worldli- 
ness.  The  first  in  the  long  series  was  held  one  pleas- 
ant day  in  June  with  an  attendance  of  five  students. 
"Numbers  were  on  the  green  and  under  the  shade  of 
the  maples  as  these  brethren  .  .  .  passed  ...  to  the 
conference  room."1  Professor  Hopkins  always  con- 
ducted the  meetings  and  the  simple  programme  never 
varied  —  stanzas  of  a  familiar  hymn,  texts  of  Scrip- 
ture, brief  prayers,  a  word  of  exposition  or  exhorta- 
tion by  the  leader,  and  then  a  concluding  hymn.  They 
continued  for  the  space  of  thirty-nine  years,  and  were 
in  the  opinion  of  John  Bascom  the  most  efficient 
means  of  promoting  the  spiritual  life  that  he  had  ever 
1  Durfee,  History  of  Williams  College,  232. 
173 


WILLIAMS  COLLEGE 

known.1  In  later  times,  when  interest  in  them  had 
begun  to  slacken,  he  became  absorbed  in  neighbor- 
hood mission  work.  In  this  field  his  monument  is  the 
reformed  White  Oaks,  where  his  labors  effected  some 
such  social  transformation  as  the  ministry  of  Richard 
Baxter  at  Kidderminster. 

At  times  and  under  favoring  circumstances,  when 
the  tremendous  spiritual  intensities  slumbering  in  his 
nature  were  awakened,  Albert  Hopkins  was  an  extra- 
ordinary preacher.  He  had  the  dramatic  sensibility 
of  the  greater  Hebrew  prophets.  Now  and  then  during 
periods  of  religious  quickening  flashes  of  imaginative 
splendor  burst  forth  in  his  speech  and  with  startling 
effect.  None  of  his  few  printed  sermons  afford  much 
evidence  of  what  may  have  happened  when  they  were 
delivered.  They  are  the  ashes  of  a  burnt-out  fire. 

John  Tatlock,  a  native  of  North  Wales,  who  came 
to  the  United  States  in  1830  at  the  age  of  twenty-two 
years,  valedictorian  of  the  class  of  1836,  has  the  honor 
of  the  first  appointment  to  the  teaching  staff  in  the 
administration  of  Mark  Hopkins.  For  the  two  years 
following  his  graduation  he  was  tutor,  then  became 
Professor  of  Mathematics,  and  held  that  position, 
with  the  exception  of  a  single  year  when  he  taught  the 
ancient  languages,  until  1867.  He  had  unusual  in- 
tellectual quickness  and  versatility  together  with  a 
bright  turn  for  humorous  speech.  But  some  malign 
influence  blighted  what  ought  to  have  been  a  career 
of  more  than  ordinary  note  —  the  isolation  of  the 
college,  the  absence  of  stimulus,  the  mischiefs  that 
wait  on  great  mental  facility  and  a  temperament  lack- 

1  Berkshire  His.  Society,  Collections,  I,  42. 
174 


HIGH  TIDES  IN  THE  CALENDAR 

ing  initiative  and  lapsing  readily  into  indolence. 
Yet  in  the  biennial  songs  of  the  eleven  classes  that 
wrote  such  verse,  no  member  of  the  faculty  is  cele- 
brated so  constantly  or  so  affectionately  as  Professor 
Tatlock. 

The  second  name  on  the  list  of  these  first  appoint- 
ments is  that  of  Nathaniel  Herrick  Griffin  (1834)  — 
a  sound  scholar,  a  competent  teacher,  and  an  inter- 
esting preacher  of  the  reflective,  cultivated,  polished 
order.  He  gave  the  college  thirty-two  years  of  varied 
and  efficient  service  as  tutor,  librarian,  and  Professor, 
first  of  the  Ancient  Languages,  then  of  Greek.  To  a 
student  of  his,  writing  after  an  interval  of  sixty  years, 
he  seemed  "rare,  refined,  gentle,  beauty-loving  ...  a 
Southern  rose,  transplanted  to  the  sterile  granite  soil 
of  New  England,  fading  in  color,  wasting  its  perfume, 
shedding  its  petals  on  our  northeast  winds."  1 

Three  professors,  elected  later  than  John  Tatlock 
and  Nathaniel  Herrick  Griffin,  whose  term  of  service 
did  not  outlast  the  administration  of  Mark  Hopkins, 
were  Isaac  Newton  Lincoln  (1847),  Professor  of  Latin 
and  French,  1853-62,  a  vigorous  advocate  of  the  doc- 
trine that  college  ought  to  be  a  place  for  serious  work 
and  consequently  incurring  some  misplaced  disfavor 
among  under-class  men;  John  Lemuel  Thomas  Phil- 
lips (1847),  Professor  of  Greek,  1857-68,  able  to  inter- 
est his  classes  in  the  grammar,  dialects,  and  sentence 
structure  of  Homer,  Xenophon,  or  ^schylus;  William 
Reynolds  Dimmock  (1855),  Professor  of  Greek,  1868- 
72,  attractive,  scholarly,  chafing  overmuch  perhaps 

1  Norman  Seaver  (1854),  Williams  Alumni  Review,  April,  1911,  pp. 
7,8. 

175 


WILLIAMS  COLLEGE 

against  conditions  at  Williamstown,  and  inclined  to 
radical  if  not  impracticable  remedies. 

Another  group  of  men,  seven  in  number,  were 
elected  to  various  chairs  in  this  period,  —  men  who 
bulked  large  in  the  immediate  and  subsequent  history 
of  the  college,  —  Paul  Ansel  Chadbourne  (1848); 
John  Bascom  (1849);  Arthur  Latham  Perry  (1852); 
Sanborn  Tenney  (Amherst,  1853);  Franklin  Gilson 
(1855);  Cyrus  Morris  Dodd  (1855);  and  Franklin 
Carter  (1862).  Probably  no  better  teaching  could  be 
found  in  any  New  England  college  than  in  Williams 
during  the  last  twenty  years  of  Dr.  Hopkins'  admin- 
istration. President  Angell  makes  a  similar  claim  for 
Brown  in  the  preceding  decade  and  fortifies  it  by  quo- 
tations from  the  "  Recollections  "  of  Senator  Hoar  and 
the  "Autobiography"  of  Andrew  D.  White  in  regard 
to  classroom  conditions  at  Harvard  and  Yale.1 

The  two  debating  societies,  with  pleasant  quarters 
in  South  College  and  libraries  of  four  or  five  thousand 
volumes  each,  quite  held  their  own.  A  large  majority 
of  the  questions  discussed  at  their  meetings  were  polit- 
ical, and  some  of  the  decisions  handed  down  have  a 
queer  look  at  the  present  day,  since  they  announced 
that  "the  nullification  act"  of  South  Carolina  was 
" justifiable";  that  old  John  Brown  deserved  hang- 
ing; that  the  fugitive  slave  law  ought  not  to  be  re- 
pealed; that  it  would  be  impossible  to  restore  the 
Union  at  the  close  of  the  Civil  War  (September  17, 
1862);  and  that  Abraham  Lincoln  should  be  defeated 
in  the  campaign  for  reelection  (February  10,  1864). 
These  debating  society  findings  touched  educational 

1  Reminiscences,  37. 

176 


HIGH  TIDES  IN  THE  CALENDAR 

as  well  as  political  questions.  In  1839  they  declared 
that  the  present  Williams  curriculum  did  not  tend 
to  develop  the  mental  powers,  and  in  1850  that  "the 
recent  course  of  study*'  advocated  by  President 
Wayland  of  Brown  "is  not  adapted  to  American 
Colleges."  l 

The  Philologian  Society  abolished  the  office  of 
Reader  in  1840.  It  seems  that  this  office,  the  chief 
function  of  which  was  the  presentation  of  volunteer 
communications,  had  been  in  existence  a  number  of 
years  and  on  the  whole  served  an  amusing  and  useful 
purpose.  But  it  was  this  sort  of  thing  that  readily  lent 
itself  to  abuse.  From  the  beginning  there  had  been 
complaints  of  varying  intensity  and  volume.  The 
character  of  the  communications  finally  fell  so  low 
that  the  Reader  asked  to  be  relieved  from  duty.  His 
request  was  granted,  the  office  discontinued,  and  the 
secretary  directed  to  draw  up  and  spread  upon  the 
records  a  statement  of  reasons  for  the  summary  ac- 
tion. "The  pieces  in  this  department,"  said  the  secre- 
tary in  his  affluent  indictment,  "  tend  directly  to  foster 
vice;  to  excite  hatred,  animosity,  revenge,  and  the 
like;  to  blunt  the  moral  perceptions;  to  make  enemies 
of  friends."  2  Evidently  the  Philologians  of  1840  had 
ample  reasons  for  abolishing  the  wicked  office. 

In  these  later  times  of  indifference  and  collapse  the 
fierce  rivalry  which  existed  between  the  debating 
societies  appears  childish  and  absurd.  A  trivial  mat- 
ter sometimes  produced  violent  disturbance.  The 
Philotechnians  —  to  cite  an  illustration  of  this  in- 

1  Records  of  the  Philologian  and  Philotechnian  Societies,  passim. 
*  Records  of  the  Philologian  Society,  April  15,  1840. 

177 


WILLIAMS  COLLEGE 

flammable  temper  —  were  surprised  at  their  meeting, 
October  9,  1850,  by  the  entrance  of  two  former  mem- 
bers of  the  society,  President  Hopkins  and  Professor 
Tatlock.  Naturally  they  were  asked  "to  make  some 
remarks"  and  accepted  the  invitation.  This  innocent 
visit  roused  instant  and  tremendous  indignation 
among  the  Philologians.  At  a  special  meeting  held 
forthwith  they  passed  resolutions  denouncing  the  visit 
as  an  act  of  favoritism  to  a  rival  society  "unprece- 
dented since  our  connection  with  the  college.  .  .  .  We 
must  and  do  unanimously  protest  against  all  such 
interferences  as  most  unwise  and  ungenerous."  *  A 
committee,  appointed  by  the  society,  presented  a 
copy  of  the  resolutions  to  President  Hopkins  and 
Professor  Tatlock.  Their  interview  with  these  gentle- 
men must  have  been  interesting,  but  no  report  of  it 
has  been  preserved. 

Occasionally  there  were  great  internal  commotions. 
One  of  them,  and  presumably  the  worst,  convulsed 
the  Philologian  Society  in  the  autumn  of  1843.  The 
occasion  of  this  phenomenal  rumpus  was  an  election  of 
speakers  for  the  Adelphic  Union  Exhibition  —  hardly 
a  matter  of  supreme  importance.  Just  what  caused 
the  trouble  is  not  clear,  but  great  confusion  prevailed. 
"Shouting,  hissing,  clapping,  stamping  mingled  in 
one  wild  uproar."  2  The  next  week  a  vociferous  dis- 
cussion instantly  sprung  up  over  the  legality  of  the 
election  and  raged  "until  near  eleven  o'clock,"  when 
"President  Hopkins  came  slowly  into  the  room  and, 
having  made  some  conciliatory  remarks,  suggested 

1  Records  of  the  Philologian  Society,  October  10,  1850. 

2  Ibid.,  October  25,  1843. 

I78 


HIGH  TIDES  IN  THE  CALENDAR 

the  propriety  of  adjourning."1  After  an  ineffectual 
motion  or  two  the  society  accepted  his  advice.  The 
feud,  however,  was  not  yet  finally  composed,  as  the 
discussion  blazed  up  afresh  at  the  next  meeting,  and 
with  such  fury  that  President  Hopkins  again  inter- 
vened and  proposed  that  the  matter  at  issue  should 
be  submitted  to  arbitration  —  a  suggestion  which  the 
fiery  belligerents  adopted.  Two  professors,  Albert 
Hopkins  and  Joseph  Alden,  and  Daniel  Noble  Dewey, 
Treasurer  of  the  college,  were  appointed  referees. 
They  prepared  a  written  report  which  President 
Hopkins  himself  carried  to  a  meeting  of  the  society. 
He  said  he  did  not  know  what  the  referees  had  done 
and  hoped  neither  side  would  make  any  demonstra- 
tion when  the  report  was  read,  and  this  violent  tem- 
pest in  a  teapot  subsided. 

Foolish  rivalry  and  tumult  at  elections,  however, 
did  not  interfere  very  seriously  with  the  proper  work 
of  the  societies.  In  general  it  may  be  said  that  they 
reached  the  point  of  culmination  about  the  middle  of 
the  century,  and  that  a  decline  then  began,  which 
continued  until  1914,  when  they  became  practically 
extinct.2  Their  successors,  so  far  as  they  have  any, 
are  courses  in  argumentation  and  intercollegiate 
debating  leagues. 

In  these  years  the  relations  of  faculty  and  students 
were  generally  peaceful.  The  following  extract  from 
the  diary  of  an  1843  Freshman  is  probably  a  fair 
statement  of  the  usual  status:  "Called  on  the  Presi- 
dent and  two  or  three  of  the  Professors  to-day.  Was 

1  Records  of  the  Philologian  Society,  November  I,  1843. 

2  Springfield  Republican,  March  3,  1914. 

179 


WILLIAMS  COLLEGE 

struck  with  the[ir]  affable  and  familiar  manner.  How 
different  from  my  old  Academy  teacher  who  used, 
when  I  called  upon  him,  to  assume  the  dignity  of  a 
Turkish  Sultan.  The  instructors  here,  on  the  con- 
trary, seem  to  consider  the  students  as  young  gentle- 
men, desirous  of  an  education  and  themselves  as  their 
friendly  guides,  not  sentinels  nor  police  officers.  The 
result  is  that  the  students  almost  universally  regard 
the  faculty  as  their  friends." 

It  is  not  to  be  supposed  that  the  reign  of  peace  was 
perpetual.  As  a  matter  of  fact  occasional  interrup- 
tions of  it  —  and  one  or  two  of  them  were  rather 
serious  —  did  occur.  The  overshadowing  popularity 
of  President  Hopkins  continued  from  first  to  last 
with  little  fluctuation,  but  his  colleagues  sometimes 
encountered  seasons  of  rough  weather.  Anonymous 
publications,  like  the  "College  Reflector"  of  August, 
1 851 ,  now  and  then  appeared  and  gave  vent  to  passing 
phases  of  ill-temper.  There  were  also  sporadic  epi- 
demics of  lawlessness.  One  of  them,  which  occasioned 
considerable  disturbance,  broke  out  shortly  after  the 
inauguration  of  Mark  Hopkins.  "We  have  had  re- 
markable times  here  of  late,"  wrote  a  Sophomore, 
November  6,  1836.  "The  spirit  of  innovation  rages 
beyond  anything  ever  witnessed  before.  The  Dare- 
Devil  Club  (shame  to  Old  Williams)  makes  tremen- 
dous havoc  among  the  Freshmen  and  Townspeople. 
Freshmen  rooms  are  haunted  by  Ghosts  and  Devils. 
Their  windows  are  broken  and  shattered  shockingly. 
Their  keys  are  laid  up  in  'highways  and  hedges.* 
Their  halls  are  ornamented  with  the  feathers  and  skel- 

1  Wells  and  Davis,  Sketches  of  Williams  College,  73. 
1 80 


HIGH  TIDES  IN  THE  CALENDAR 

etons  of  chickens.  Townspeople  are  tormented  .  .  . 
in  ways  too  numerous  to  mention.  Professor  Kellogg 
has  a  regular  court  for  bringing  culprits  to  justice 
2  hours  per  day  for  three  weeks.  The  cunning  of  the 
Dare  Devils  has  as  yet  baffled  the  wary  old  man.  I 
hope  they  will  soon  be  cast  out  of  the  synagogue. 
Such  doings  are  unprecedented  here."  1 

The  only  serious  interruption  of  friendly  relations 
occurred  in  1868  when  the  students  at  a  college  meet- 
ing, November  10,  passed  without  dissent  a  resolution 
severing  their  connection  with  the  institution.  What 
desperate  grievance  provoked  this  ordinance  of  seces- 
sion? Nothing  more  than  the  rule,  announced  No- 
vember 5,  that  any  absence  from  recitation, "  whether 
excused  or  unexcused,  will  count  as  zero  in  the  record 
of  standing."  Some  question  arose,  during  the  final 
deliberations  of  the  faculty,  in  regard  to  the  practical 
enforcement  of  this  rule.  "It  will  execute  itself," 
Professor  Bascom  explained.  "Perhaps,"  retorted 
Professor  Carter,  "it  will  execute  the  college  first." 
And  that  was  what  very  nearly  happened.  The  stu- 
dents lost  no  time  in  denouncing  the  new  regulation 
and  in  demanding  that  it  should  be  "annulled,"  but 
the  faculty  declined  to  make  any  concessions  what- 
ever. Then  followed  secession  and  a  total  suspension 
of  college  exercises.  It  was  an  awkward  situation. 
Yet,  though  intense  excitement  prevailed,  Williams- 
town  was  outwardly  peaceful.  No  acts  of  violence 
attended  this  revolution.  The  students  agreed  to  re- 
main in  the  neighborhood  and  to  refrain  from  "all 

1  W.  W.  Mitchell  (1839),  MS.  letter,  November  6,  1836,  in  Williams 
College  Library. 

181 


WILLIAMS  COLLEGE 

objectionable  conduct "  until  some  settlement  of  the 
controversy  should  be  effected.  "  We  feel  proud  that 
a  body  of  young  men,"  said  a  spokesman  for  them, 
"have  been  found  in  this  generation,  who  proceeded 
carefully,  consistently,  and  unanimously  against  in- 
justice and  tyranny."1 

Both  parties,  faculty  and  students,  anxiously 
awaited  the  return  of  President  Hopkins,  who  had 
gone  to  Marietta,  Ohio,  to  preach  an  anniversary  ser- 
mon. He  returned  Saturday,  November  14,  preached 
Sunday  morning  in  the  chapel,  and  at  the  conclusion 
of  the  services  announced  that  a  college  meeting 
would  be  held  the  next  morning.  It  was  a  large  gath- 
ering which  then  assembled  and  included  many 
friends  of  the  institution,  drawn  to  Williamstown  by 
alarming  reports  of  the  revolt.  When  President  Hop- 
kins rose  to  speak  there  could  be  no  doubt  that  he  was 
master  of  the  situation.2  With  consummate  tact,  with 
a  logic,  a  fairness  and  lucidity  which  compelled  con- 
viction, he  argued  that  the  laws  of  the  institution  must 
be  maintained,  and  that  there  were  wiser  methods  for 
redressing  supposed  wrongs  than  rebellion  and  seces- 
sion. This  felicitous  and  persuasive  address,  the  great 
prestige  of  Dr.  Hopkins,  and  the  knowledge  that  he 
favored  some  modification  of  the  new  rule  brought 
the  ugly  crisis  to  a  peaceful  end.  At  this  time  of  day 
appraisal  of  the  controversy  presents  no  serious  diffi- 
culties. While  the  evils  the  faculty  sought  to  sup- 
press were  real,  it  was  a  mistake  to  attempt  a  sudden 
and  radical  reformation  in  the  President's  absence.3 

1  Williams  Vidette.    2  Perry,  Williamstown  and  Williams  Colkge,  644. 
8  Carter,  Mark  Hopkins,  chap.  V. 

182 


HIGH  TIDES  IN  THE  CALENDAR 

The  rowdyism  of  1836  and  the  rebellion  of  1868 
were  emergencies  that  must  be  met  by  special  meas- 
ures. In  the  ordinary  administration  of  discipline  the 
ancient  penalty  of  fines  still  held  a  prominent  place. 
Of  the  offenders  punished  by  this  penalty  there  was 
one  who  failed  "  to  recite  on  the  morning  after  thanks- 
giving"; another  who  "went  to  Troy  when  excused 
to  go  to  Bennington " ;  and  a  third  who  "put  up  a  flag 
on  the  Sabbath"  —-that  particular  Sabbath  being  the 
4th  of  July,  I84I.1 

Celebrations  of  three  important  anniversaries  took 
place  in  Dr.  Hopkins'  time.  The  first  of  them  was  the 
semi-centennial  commemorated  Wednesday,  August 
16,  1843.  It  fell  upon  a  period  of  depression,  as  only 
two  years  had  elapsed  since  East  College  burned 
down,  and  the  struggle  to  rebuild  it  was  still  in  prog- 
ress. The  authorities  attempted  little  in  the  way  of 
decoration  and  display  —  the  total  expenses  for  the 
anniversary  amounting  to  only  $i97,i6.2  Like  the 
inauguration  of  Mark  Hopkins,  it  was  a  modest, 
sober,  undemonstrative  affair  and  attended  by  no 
delegates  from  other  institutions.  The  solitary  dis- 
tinguished guest  in  attendance  seems  to  have  been 
Marcus  Morton,  Governor  of  the  State.  But  the 
alumni  came  in  relatively  large  numbers-  "prob- 
ably not  far  from  three  hundred  " 3  of  them,  one  third 
of  all  the  living  graduates.  Wednesday  morning  at 
eight  o'clock  they  held  a  meeting  for  greetings  and 
reminiscences,  "a  most  delightful  family  gathering." 

1  Records  of  the  Faculty,  1836-72,  passim. 
f  Records  of  the  Trustees,  August  20,  1844. 
8  Durfee,  History  of  Williams  College,  251. 

183 


WILLIAMS  COLLEGE 

The  enchanted  Long  Ago 
Murmur'd  and  smiled  anew. 

Then  at  ten  o'clock  they  formed  in  procession, 
marched  to  the  Congregational  Church  at  the  head  of 
Main  Street  and  heard  President  Hopkins  and  the 
Rev.  Dr.  Thomas  Robbins.  The  oration  of  the  former 
on  the  "Law  of  Progress"  was  the  chief  event  of  the 
anniversary  —  an  event  that  lifted  it  high  above  all 
routine,  commonplace,  or  provincialism.  Not  more 
than  two  or  three  of  the  baccalaureate  sermons  which 
gave  distinction  to  subsequent  Commencements  rival 
it  in  intellectual  force,  in  breadth  of  thought  and 
felicity  of  phrase. 

Thomas  Robbins,  the  second  speaker,  —  a  slight, 
quaint,  picturesque  figure  in  the  small-clothes  of  the 
preceding  century,  —  said  his  address  was  "  too  long 
—  an  hour  and  forty-five  minutes  —  but  kindly 
heard."  l  This  highly  respectable  address,  in  which 
the  obligations  of  educated  men  to  the  community 
were  considered,  had  the  misfortune  to  follow  one  of 
much  greater  brilliancy  and  power. 

After  the  exercises  in  the  church  came  the  banquet. 
Tables  were  spread  in  "a  spacious  booth"  on  East 
College  campus  and  the  festivities  continued  until 
evening.  Samuel  R.  Betts  (1806)  presided  and  intro- 
duced Governor  Morton,  who  made  a  happy  response, 
congratulating  the  college  particularly  upon  its  situa- 
tion, which  seemed  to  him  to  be  "  in  some  respects  .  .  . 
unrivalled."  2  Addresses  by  alumni  followed,  only 
two  of  which  have  been  preserved,  those  of  Charles  A. 

1  Robbins,  Diary,  n,  705. 

8  New  York  Observer,  August  26,  1843. 

184 


HIGH  TIDES  IN  THE  CALENDAR 

Dewey  and  Emory  Washburn,  and  they  dwell  upon 
various  phases  of  college  history.  Dr.  Alonzo  Calkins 
(1825)  offered  the  parting  sentiment:  — 

"  O  fortes,  peioraque  passi 
Mecum  saepe  viri,  nunc  risa  pellite  curas; 
Cras  ingens  iterabimus  aequor."  l 

The  one-hundredth  anniversary  of  the  death  of 
Colonel  Williams  occurred  in  1855.  His  name  had 
not  been  very  constantly  in  mind  during  the  sixty- 
two  years  since  the  founding  of  the  college.  So  early 
as  1812  the  Trustees  felt  that  something  should  be 
done  to  rescue  it  from  the  gathering  shadows.  At 
their  meeting,  September  I,  they  appointed  a  com- 
mittee "to  devise  some  plan  to  perpetuate  the  mem- 
ory of  it."  After  considering  the  subject  a  year  this 
committee  reported  that  a  marble  tablet,  "with  suit- 
able inscriptions  thereon  in  the  chapel  which  it  is 
the  intention  of  the  board  to  build,  .  .  .  would  be  the 
most  eligible  method."  The  Trustees  approved  of  the 
suggestion  and  then  voted  —  to  postpone  the  sub- 
ject "for  the  present."2  But  this  "intention  of  the 
Board"  did  not  become  a  reality  until  1828  —  fif- 
teen years  later  —  when  the  new  chapel  was  erected 
and  the  proposed  tablet  placed  upon  its  walls.  A 
quarter  of  a  century  elapsed  before  anything  more 
was  done.  At  their  annual  meeting  in  1853  the 
alumni  appointed  a  committee  to  remove  the  remains 
of  the  founder  to  the  college  cemetery  and  "  to  erect  a 
monument  to  his  memory.  .  .  on  the  spot  where  he 

1  Horatii    Carmina,   i,  vn,  30-32.    The  second  line   Dr.   Calkins 
emended  by  substituting  risa  for  vino. 

2  Records  of  the  Trustees,  September  I,  1812,  and  August  I,  1813. 

185 


WILLIAMS  COLLEGE 

fell."  l  The  first  part  of  their  commission  the  com- 
mittee found  it  impossible  to  execute,  since,  some 
twenty  years  earlier,  the  grave  had  been  opened  by  a 
member  of  the  Williams  family,  who  is  said  to  have 
carried  off  a  part  of  the  remains.2  But  they  did  erect 
the  monument  —  "an  honorable  memorial"  of  grey 
marble  with  suitable  inscriptions.  Then,  at  the  Com- 
mencement of  1855,  the  centennial  anniversary  of  the 
founder's  death  was  observed,  when  Edward  W.  B. 
Canning  (1834)  read  a  well-turned  poem  and  James 
White  (1836)  pronounced  an  eloquent  historical 
oration. 

The  visit  of  Byram  Green  to  Williamstown  in  1854, 
of  which  some  account  has  already  been  given,  had 
two  immediate  and  relatively  important  results  — 
the  purchase  of  Mission  Park,  "the  most  sacred  of 
God's  temples  in  the  Western  world,"  3  and  the  cele- 
bration of  the  fiftieth  anniversary  of  the  haystack 
prayer  meeting. 

It  was  intended  that  the  exercises  of  the  Jubilee 
should  be  held  in  the  open  air  and  on  the  ground 
where  Mills  and  his  companions  prayed  in  1 806.  Not 
only  seats,  but,  in  order  to  visualize  in  some  vague 
yet  suggestive  fashion  the  connections  of  past  and 
present,  a  haystack  and  bungalow  were  erected  in  the 
grove.4  A  violent  rainstorm,  however,  which  "con- 
tinued almost  without  interruption  through  the  ... 
day  and  evening,"6  made  it  necessary  to  hold  the 
exercises  in  the  church.  Albert  Hopkins  delivered  the 

1  Durfee,  History  of  Williams  College,  269.  2  Ibid.,  270. 

3  Williams  Quarterly,  Editor's  Table,  December,  1856. 

4  Missionary  Jubilee,  12. 

6  Williams  Quarterly,  December,  1856. 

1 86 


HIGH  TIDES  IN  THE  CALENDAR 

principal  oration  and  discoursed  impressively,  with 
characteristic  touches  of  humor,  upon  the  times  and 
men  of  the  famous  prayer  meeting.  A  series  of  short 
addresses,  thirteen  in  number,  followed  this  principal 
oration.  The  exercises,  broken  only  by  an  intermis- 
sion of  fifteen  minutes,  lasted  six  hours,  and  in  spite 
of  their  length  stirred  to  enthusiasm  that  keen,  vet- 
eran observer  and  critic,  the  Rev.  Dr.  Samuel  H.  Cox. 
"Old  men  said,"  he  remarked,  '"We  never  saw  the 
like,*  and  I  say,  'Beat  it  if  you  can,  O  ye  scholars  of 
the  coming  age,  in  your  centennial  celebration.'*'1 
These  scholars  did  not  and  could  not  beat  it  in  elo- 
quence, though  they  surpassed  it  in  pomp  and  cir- 
cumstance. Wednesday,  October  10,  1906,  a  great 
multitude  of  people  gathered  in  Williamstown  —  the 
annual  meeting  of  the  American  Board  was  held  there 
and  in  North  Adams  —  to  celebrate  the  centennial. 
The  programme  included  a  sunrise  service  in  Mission 
Park,  addresses  in  the  Thompson  Memorial  Chapel 
and  in  the  Congregational  Church  during  the  fore- 
noon, and  an  open-air  meeting  at  the  park  in  the  after- 
noon. A  cold,  heavy  rain  partly  broke  up  the  sunrise 
service,  but  some  remained  in  spite  of  it  to  offer  their 
prayers  on  the  ground  hallowed  by  Mills  and  his 
companions.  A  thousand  people  attended  the  "  aca- 
demic" service  in  the  Thompson  Chapel,  where  three 
college  presidents  —  Hopkins  of  Williams,  Tucker  of 
Dartmouth,  and  Hyde  of  Bowdoin  —  and  the  son  of 
a  famous  missionary,  the  Rev.  Dr.  Edward  Judson, 
of  New  York,  spoke  on  various  phases  of  the  haystack 
prayer  meeting  and  its  consequences. 

1  Cox,  New  York  Evangelist,  August  14,  1856. 


WILLIAMS  COLLEGE 

For  the  afternoon  service  a  platform  had  been 
erected  and  chairs  provided  on  the  north  side  of  Mis- 
sion Park,  where  there  is  a  natural  amphitheatre  ad- 
mirably adapted  to  the  purposes  of  a  great  outdoor 
assembly.  Twenty-five  hundred  people  attended  this 
service.  Beautiful  autumnal  sunshine  followed  the 
cloud  and  storm  of  the  morning,  and  the  exercises 
were  not  unworthy  of  their  splendid  setting,  espe- 
cially the  addresses  of  ten  young  men,  converts  in 
mission  fields,  "all  the  way  from  Europe  and  Africa 
to  Hawaii  and  Mexico."  1  The  first  commemoration 
awakened  comparatively  little  interest,  but  the  sec- 
ond was  one  of  the  great  religious  anniversaries  of  the 
year.  "  Meetings  in  five  continents  this  Wednesday," 
some  one  then  said  of  the  haystack  men,  "celebrate 
their  centennial."  2 

There  was  no  hesitation  or  uncertainty  in  the  re- 
sponse of  Williams  men  to  the  calls  of  patriotism 
during  the  great  national  crisis  of  1861-65.  Three 
hundred  and  seventeen  of  them  entered  the  Federal 
service,  —  two  hundred  and  forty-nine  graduates 
and  sixty-eight  non-graduates,  —  representatives  of 
thirty-eight  classes  from  1825  to  1870.  In  this  esti- 
mate thirty-six  volunteers  for  work  in  the  Christian 
or  Sanitary  Commissions  are  not  included.3 

Little  happened  on  the  campus  during  the  war 
which  is  of  present  interest  or  importance.  News  that 

1  Missionary  Herald,  November,  1906,  p.  520. 

2  The  Haystack  Centennial,  96. 

3  See  Appendix.  Eight  non-graduates  entered  the  Confederate  army. 
One  of  them,  William  Farley  Storrow  Lovell  (1849),  reached  the  rank 
of  inspector-general,  and  another,  Joseph  Lovell,  that  of  brigadier- 
general. 

188 


HIGH  TIDES  IN  THE  CALENDAR 

Fort  Sumter  had  surrendered  to  the  South  Carolinians 
reached  Williamstown  April  15  —  the  last  day  of  the 
second  term  of  the  college  year.  This  news,  wrote  a 
Junior  in  his  journal,  "caused  intense  excitement" 
-  "the  students  all  swear  they  will  enlist."  l  First 
and  last  twenty-nine  of  them  seem  to  have  left  college 
to  join  the  army.  But  the  shrinkage  in  the  registra- 
tion of  Freshmen  was  a  more  serious  and  alarming 
matter.  For  the  four  years  preceding  the  Civil  War  it 
had  averaged  fifty-nine  —  for  the  next  four  it  fell  to 
thirty-seven. 

When  the  third  term  began,  in  the  spring  of  1861 
after  a  vacation  of  two  weeks,  the  undergraduates 
organized  themselves  into  a  battalion,  and  drilled  an 
hour  daily.  Subsequently  the  faculty  took  the  busi- 
ness in  charge  and  made  military  training  a  required 
exercise  with  a  schedule  of  three  hours  a  week.  At 
the  Commencement  of  1863,  the  battalion,  mustered 
in  front  of  Griffin  Hall,  listened  to  a  stirring  address 
by  Governor  John  A.  Andrew. 

Another  interesting  event  of  this  Commencement 
was  a  poem  written  by  William  Cullen  Bryant  and 
read  at  the  fiftieth  anniversary  of  his  college  class. 
In  this  poem  the  great  war  —  its  causes  and  inevi- 
table outcome  —  were  his  theme  — 

"Fierce  is  the  strife, 

As  when  of  old  the  shining  angels  strove 
To  whelm,  beneath  the  uprooted  hills  of  heaven, 
The  warriors  of  the  Lord.   Yet  now  as  then 
God  and  the  Right  shall  give  the  victory." 

1  Raymond,  Fiftieth  Anniversary  Report,  Class  of  '62,  17. 

189 


WILLIAMS  COLLEGE 

A  few  days  before  Commencement  yet  another 
event,  of  no  particular  importance,  it  may  be,  caused 
considerable  excitement  on  the  campus.  "Mrs. 
McClellan,  who  spends  her  summers  here,"  wrote  a 
member  of  the  graduating  class,  "had  a  letter  from 
her  son  —  own  cousin  of  General  McClellan  —  in  the 
Rebel  army,  wanting  to  know  where  her  property  in 
Washington  is,  that  he  may  protect  it  when  the  cap- 
ital falls  into  Rebel  hands.  She  thinks  her  two  sons 
in  General  Meade's  army  quite  as  competent  for  the 
task."  1 

Perhaps  the  most  touching  event  in  local  history 
during  the  war  was  the  reinterment  of  the  remains  of 
Lieutenant  Edward  Payson  Hopkins,  the  only  son  of 
Albert  Hopkins,  who  fell  May  4,  1864,  in  a  cavalry 
charge  at  Ashland,  Virginia.  After  a  futile  attempt 
early  in  June  to  recover  them,  the  stricken  father  re- 
turned home  "grown  ten  years  older  than  when  he 
went  away."  His  second  expedition  proved  success- 
ful, and,  December  31,  1864,  they  were  buried  in  the 
college  cemetery.  Chaplain  Henry  Hopkins  made  a 
touching  address  at  the  funeral  exercises  in  the  Con- 
gregational Church,  and  the  choir,  of  which  the  gal- 
lant young  soldier  had  been  a  member,  sang  Mont- 
gomery's hymn  — 

"Go  to  the  grave  in  all  thy  glorious  prime."  2 

The  patriotic  enthusiasm  of  the  Berkshire  students, 
which  marked  the  beginning  of  the  Civil  War,  was  no 
less  demonstrative  at  its  conclusion.  Recitations  were 

i  S.  W.  Dike,  MS.  letter,  July  11,  1863. 

*  Prentiss,  Life  and  Letters  of  Elizabeth  Prentiss,  228. 

190 


HIGH  TIDES  IN  THE  CALENDAR 

in  progress  when  they  heard  that  Lee's  army  had  sur- 
rendered at  Appomattox  Court  House.  Without  wait- 
ing for  the  formalities  of  dismission,  they  rushed  with 
tumultuous  cheers  to  the  chapel  and  sang  "  America  " 
and  the  "Doxology."  x 

Thirty  Williams  men  lost  their  lives  in  the  war.  A 
monument,  erected  on  the  campus  to  their  memory, 
was  dedicated  July  28,  1868,  —  one  graduate  of  the 
class  of  1825,  the  Rev.  Dr.  Jeremiah  Porter,  offering 
the  consecrating  prayer,  and  another  graduate  of  the 
same  class,  David  Dudley  Field,  pronouncing  the 
oration.  "The  statue  which  we  this  day  uncover," 
said  the  latter,  "  is  a  tribute  and  a  memorial.  It  is  the 
tribute  of  this  generation  to  patriotism,  fidelity,  and 
heroic  virtue.  It  is  the  memorial  to  future  generations 
of  a  great  war  and  a  great  peace.  .  .  .  Such  a  war  and 
such  a  peace  deserve  a  memorial  that  shall  last  as 
long  as  yonder  mountains  shall  look  upon  this  valley. 
.  .  .  Here  let  it  remain  .  .  .  standing  like  a  sentinel  at 
the  dawn  of  morning,  at  noon,  at  eventide,  in  the  soft 
moonlight  and  beneath  the  stars."  2 

Upwards  of  fifteen  hundred  Williams  graduates  re- 
ceived their  diplomas  from  Mark  Hopkins  and  the 
registration  of  non-graduates  in  his  time  reached  at 
least  half  that  number.  Many  of  them,  men  of  note 
in  business,  in  the  professions,  in  scholarship,  or  in 
literature,  deserve  a  recognition  which  the  compass  of 
the  present  volume  does  not  permit.  Nothing  more 
can  be  attempted  than  short  sketches  of  a  few  who 
became  widely  known  and  are  no  longer  living. 

1  Williams  Quarterly,  June,  1865. 

2  D.  D.  Field,  Speeches,  Arguments,  and  Miscellaneous  Papers,  n,  275. 

191 


WILLIAMS  COLLEGE 

One  non-graduate,  Eugene  Field,  prepared  for  col- 
lege at  a  private  school  in  Monson,  under  the  care  of 
a  genial,  old-fashioned  master,  the  Rev.  Mr.  Tufts, 
who  seems  to  have  been  his  friend  as  well  as  teacher. 
He  entered  the  Freshman  class  in  the  autumn  of  1868 
and  remained  a  member  of  it  about  eight  months. 
Apparently  the  boy  gave  little  attention  to  his  proper 
duties  in  these  months  and  developed  certain  "excen- 
trisities"  which  so  much  disturbed  the  orderly  life  at 
Williamstown  that  President  Hopkins  is  said  to  have 
advised  Mr.  Tufts  to  take  him  out  of  college.  There 
was  no  official  reprimand  or  dismissal  —  he  simply 
withdrew.1  In  two  other  institutions,  —  Knox  Col- 
lege and  the  University  of  Missouri,  —  where  he  was 
a  student  for  a  time,  he  repeated  substantially  his 
Williamstown  history. 

What  Eugene  Field  got  out  of  his  varied  academic 
experience  is  uncertain.  Nor  has  the  final  rating  of 
this  whimsical,  rollicking,  improvident,  brilliant  lit- 
terateur, whose  books  were  put  together  out  of  contri- 
butions to  Denver  or  Chicago  newspapers,  as  yet 
been  fully  settled.  His  "  Love-Songs  of  Childhood  "  — 
quite  as  finely  imagined  and  quite  as  free  from  grown- 
up qualities  as  Stevenson's  "A  Child's  Garden  of 
Verses"  —  have  the  best  promise. 

Another  non-graduate,  Edward  Payson  Roe,  came 
to  Williamstown  in  1859.    During  the  winter  term  of 
Freshman  year  some  eye-trouble  grew  so  serious  that 
he  became  discouraged  and  was  about  to  leave  col- 
lege. Calling  upon  President  Hopkins,  he  told  him  his 
perplexities  and  fears.    "  Never  can  I  forget  how  the 
1  Thompson,  Eugene  Field,  81. 
192 


HIGH  TIDES  IN  THE  CALENDAR 

grand  old  man  met  the  disheartened  boy.  .  .  .  The 
half-hour  spent  with  him  [was]  the  turning  point  of 
my  life." l  He  joined  the  Senior  class  the  next  autumn, 
thus  becoming  a  University  or  partial-course  student. 
The  instructions  of  that  Senior  year  were,  he  said, 
invaluable  to  him. 

Whatever  the  worth  of  literary  criticism  by  the 
event  may  be,  —  and  Professor  Saintsbury  is  inclined 
to  take  issue  with  Dr.  Johnson's  hostile  dictum  on 
this  question,  —  in  the  case  of  Edward  P.  Roe's 
books  the  event  was  a  sale  of  1,400,000  copies  in  his 
lifetime  and  a  considerable  subsequent  vogue.  To 
professional  critics  these  books  seem  crude,  ill-made, 
and  lacking  in  essential  qualities  of  literary  art.  But 
multitudes  of  intelligent  men  and  women,  English  as 
well  as  American,  read  them  with  pleasure  and  profit. 
He  wrote  for  the  masses,  and  gloried  in  his  mission 
scarcely  less  than  a  once  well-known  contemporary, 
who  declared  that  "he  would  crawl  on  his  hands  and 
knees  until  he  sank  if  he  could  write  a  book  which  the 
plain  people  would  read  and  love."  2 

Stephen  Johnson  Field  (1837)  was  valedictorian  of 
the  first  class  that  graduated  under  Mark  Hopkins. 
Few  Williams  men  have  had  a  more  varied  or  roman- 
tic career.  In  1829,  then  a  boy  of  thirteen,  he  accom- 
panied his  sister  and  her  missionary  husband,  the 
Rev.  Josiah  Brewer,  to  Smyrna  for  the  purpose  of 
qualifying  himself  as  a  teacher  of  Oriental  languages. 
The  project  did  not  succeed  and  was  followed  by  four 
years  at  Williams  College,  by  the  study  of  law  and 

1  Roe,  Autobiography,  Lippincotfs  Magazine,  October,  1888. 

2  Plunkett,  Josiah  Gilbert  Holland,  43. 

193 


WILLIAMS  COLLEGE 

partnership  with  his  brother,  David  Dudley  Field, 
in  New  York.  Later  he  joined  the  great  migration 
of  "forty-niners"  to  California  and  settled  at  Marys- 
ville,  a  town  eight  days  old,  with  a  single  adobe  house 
and  one  thousand  inhabitants ! 1  This  pioneer  period 
continued  until  1863  and  abounded  in  such  uncom- 
fortable incidents  as  disbarment,  imprisonment  for 
contempt  of  court,  and  challenging  a  scoundrel,  who 
did  not  keep  the  appointment,  to  fight  a  duel.  On 
another  occasion,  happening  to  be  in  a  saloon  with 
David  C.  Broderick,  subsequently  United  States 
Senator,  the  latter  suddenly  thrust  him  through  an 
open  door  and  shut  it  —  much  to  his  astonishment 
and  anger.  Broderick  explained  afterwards  that  as 
they  were  standing  at  the  bar  a  desperado  with  a 
grievance  against  Field  entered  the  saloon  and  was 
drawing  a  pistol  to  shoot.2  The  feuds  of  these  turbu- 
lent times  pursued  him  long  after  their  date.  In  1889 
he  visited  California  and  an  old-time  ruffian  nearly 
succeeded  in  assassinating  him.  His  service  to  that 
Commonwealth  in  the  early  chaotic  period  of  its 
history  was  very  great.  As  a  member  of  the  first 
Legislature  and  then  of  the  highest  State  Court,  he 
probably  had  more  influence  than  any  other  man  in 
settling  the  vexed  legal  questions  which  arose  over 
disputed  mining  claims. 

In  1863  President  Lincoln  appointed  Stephen  Field 
an  Associate  Justice  of  the  Supreme  Court  of  the 
United  States,  and  he  held  that  position  thirty-four 
years  and  seven  months,  surpassing  all  the  records  in 

1  Field,  Early  Days  in  California,  223. 

2  Strong,  Landmarks  of  a  Lawyer's  Lifetime,  185. 

194 


HIGH  TIDES  IN  THE  CALENDAR 

tenure  of  office.  And  certainly  none  of  his  associates 
came  up  out  of  such  turbulent  experiences.  One  sel- 
dom finds  a  more  striking  contrast  than  that  between 
the  fighting  "forty-niner"  in  California  and  the  spec- 
tacled, silk-gowned  justice  in  Washington,  with  his 
flowing  beard,  his  massive  figure,  his  courtly  bearing, 
his  refined  and  strikingly  intellectual  face.  And  his 
career  on  the  bench  of  the  Supreme  Court  was  distin- 
guished not  only  by  length  of  days,  but  also  by  fear- 
less independence,  ample  learning,  devotion  to  prin- 
ciples rather  than  rules,  and  rare  power  of  creative 
exposition.1 

Samuel  Green  Wheeler  Benjamin  (1859)  had  a 
longer,  more  intimate  connection  with  the  Orient 
than  Stephen  Field.  The  son  of  a  missionary,  he  was 
born  in  Argos,  on  the  southeastern  coast  of  Greece, 
where  he  spent  the  first  seven  months  of  his  life.  Then 
for  the  next  seven  years  he  lived  in  Athens;  then,  and 
until  he  entered  Williams  College  at  the  age  of  eighteen , 
in  Trebizond,  Smyrna,  or  Constantinople. 

Benjamin  had  a  versatile  genius,  since  he  was  a 
diplomatist,  an  artist,  a  journalist,  and  a  man  of  let- 
ters. His  service  as  a  diplomat  was  in  Persia,  where  he 
held  the  office  of  United  States  Minister  from  1883  to 
1885,  when  a  change  of  administration  at  Washington 
brought  it  to  a  close.  A  partial  list  of  his  paintings  in 
his  autobiography  contains  one  hundred  and  thirty- 
seven  titles.  Besides  contributing  many  articles  to 
the  magazines,  he  published  sixteen  books,  some  of 
which  were  praised  by  the  critics  and  had  considerable 
sale.  His  first  venture  as  an  author  he  made  during 
1  Some  Accounts  of  the  Work  of  Stephen  Johnson  Field,  1881. 

195 


WILLIAMS  COLLEGE 

Freshman  year  in  college,  when  he  offered  an  article 
to  the  "Williams  Quarterly."  That  he  should  then 
have  aspired  to  the  honor  of  becoming  a  contributor 
to  it  was  probably  due,  he  said,  to  his  "extreme  ver- 
dancy," but  he  took  the  chance  and  knocked  early 
one  morning,  manuscript  in  hand,  at  the  door  of  the 
sanctum,  which  was  opened  by  James  A.  Garfield,  a 
member  of  the  editorial  board.  "He  was  putting  on 
a  clean  shirt  .  .  .  and  good-naturedly  invited  me  to 
enter.  ...  I  modestly  declined,  apologized  for  intrud- 
ing at  such  an  hour,  and  placed  in  his  hands  a  poem. 
He  took  it  politely  and  replied  that  he  would  carefully 
read  my  manuscript.  There  was,  however,  a  quizzi- 
cal, half -humorous  look  in  his  eye  at  the  assurance  of 
a  Freshman  who  ventured  ...  to  invite  inevitable 
rejection."  l  The  poem,  two  hundred  lines  of  blank 
verse  about  the  Bosphorus,  seems  to  have  pleased 
Garfield  and  his  associates  and  they  printed  it  in  the 
"Quarterly." 

Two  graduates  —  David  Ames  Wells  (1847)  and 
Samuel  Warren  Dike  (1863)  — were  men  of  mark  in 
the  field  of  economics  and  sociology.  It  was  by  a 
paper,  —  "Our  Burden  and  Our  Strength," — read 
before  a  literary  club  in  Troy,  New  York,  that  Wells, 
then  an  unknown  young  man,  first  attracted  atten- 
tion. The  paper  was  an  examination  of  our  national 
resources  to  determine  our  ability  to  bear  taxation,2 
and  when  brought  to  the  attention  of  Mr.  Lincoln,  it 
led  to  his  appointment  first  as  Chairman  of  the  Reve- 
nue Commission  and  subsequently  as  Special  Com- 

1  Benjamin,  The  Life  and  Adventures  of  a  Free  Lance,  140. 
1  Godkin,  Harvard  Graduates'  Magazine,  vn,  353. 

196 


HIGH  TIDES  IN  THE  CALENDAR 

missioner  of  Revenue,  positions  which  he  held  from 
1865  to  1870.  During  this  period  he  visited  Europe  in 
search  of  information,  became  a  free-trader,  and  con- 
sequently laid  himself  open  to  charges  of  having  been 
bought  with  British  gold.  These  charges,  to  which 
Horace  Greeley  gave  a  wide  and  emphatic  publicity, 
depressed  his  reputation  for  a  time,  but  the  recovery 
has  been  substantial. 

While  Wells  published  a  great  number  of  scientific 
works  and  they  had  an  immense  sale,  he  won  his  most 
distinctive  and  brilliant  success  in  the  field  of  taxa- 
tion. Contrary  to  what  one  might  have  anticipated, 
his  discussion  of  the  subject  attracted  more  attention 
abroad  than  at  home  —  a  fact  amply  attested  by  the 
extraordinary  honors  which  foreign  societies  and  uni- 
versities conferred  upon  him.1 

David  Wells'  first  book  —  "  Sketches  of  Williams 
College" — was  an  undergraduate  venture,  written 
in  collaboration  with  his  classmate  Samuel  Henry 
Davis.  The  preface  has  the  date  of  "June,  1847"  — 
a  date  belonging  to  the  last  weeks  of  his  Senior  year. 
"We  have  clothed  the  facts  given  us,"  the  authors 
modestly  explained,  "in  the  best  garments  to  be 
found  in  our  scanty  wardrobe." 

The  most  interesting  and  valuable  part  of  the  book 
is  the  chapter  on  college  life,  composed  largely  of  ex- 
tracts from  a  student's  journal.  It  may  be  pretty  con- 
fidently assumed  that  Wells  himself  was  the  diarist. 
He  made  his  first  entry  "Tuesday  10  o'clock  P.M.," 
when  he  had  been  a  member  of  the  Freshman  class 
one  day,  and  the  last  at  the  close  of  Senior  examina- 
1  Godkin,  Harvard  Graduates'  Magazine,  vn,  355. 
197 


WILLIAMS  COLLEGE 

tion  with  Commencement  only  six  weeks  away.  What 
had  the  Williams  of  1843-47  done  for  the  diarist? 
This  question  occurred  to  him  as  he  was  bringing  his 
journal  to  a  close  and  he  answered  it  —  "I  believe  I 
have  gained  some  facility  in  directing  and  fixing  my 
powers  on  a  specific  object.  ...  I  can  look  longer  and 
steadier  than  I  could  four  years  ago.  I  have  not 
richly  freighted  my  ship,  but  I  trust  I  have  acquired 
some  little  skill  in  managing  its  helm  and  sails ;  I  know 
where  the  freight  is,  where  my  course  lies,  where  the 
rocks  are  hid,  and  I  humbly  hope  I  may  reach  the 
port  towards  which  I  steer."1 

Samuel  Warren  Dike  died  in  1913  at  the  age  of 
seventy-four.  Having  a  hurried  and  indifferent  prepa- 
ration for  college,  he  said  that  he  was  enabled  to  enter 
Williams  only  "by  the  very  generous  consideration 
then  given  to  poor  scholars  who  seemed  to  be  in  ear- 
nest/' In  spite  of  this  original  handicap  his  grades  were 
so  good  at  the  close  of  the  course  that  the  faculty  as- 
signed him  the  Metaphysical  Oration,  then  one  of  the 
most  coveted  honors.  Graduating  from  Andover 
Theological  Seminary  in  1866,  he  entered  upon  the 
work  of  the  ministry  and  continued  in  it  until  1881, 
—  mainly  in  Congregational  churches  at  West  Ran- 
dolph, Vermont,  and  at  the  neighboring  town  of 
Royalton,  —  when  he  became  corresponding  secre- 
tary of  the  National  League  for  the  Protection  of  the 
Family,  and  held  this  position  for  the  thirty-two  re- 
maining years  of  his  life.  Though  he  did  not  write 
books,  his  annual  reports,  his  addresses  before  learned 
societies,  and  his  papers  in  magazines  and  quarterlies, 

1  Wells  and  Davis,  Sketches  of  Williams  College,  So. 
I98 


HIGH  TIDES  IN  THE  CALENDAR 

written  in  perspicuous  English  with  "a  strong  home 
touch,"  gave  him  wide  reputation  as  a  sociological 
expert.  "Marriage  is  a  subject  I  should  be  afraid  to 
handle,"  wrote  Goldwin  Smith,  replying  in  1890  to  a 
correspondent.  "So  much  special  knowledge  is  re- 
quired. The  best  authority  on  it,  so  far  as  the  United 
States  are  concerned,  is  the  Rev.  Samuel  W.  Dike."1 
First  and  last  he  gave  addresses  at  sixty  colleges,  uni- 
versities, and  theological  seminaries  —  visiting  some 
of  them  repeatedly.  According  to  the  late  Professor 
Herbert  Adams,  of  Johns  Hopkins,  a  certain  trip  of 
his  to  educational  institutions  in  the  eighties  of  the 
last  century  did  more  to  stimulate  the  study  of  social 
science  than  any  event  in  the  history  of  the  country 
up  to  that  time.2 

James  Hulme  Canfield  (1868),  orator  at  the  cen- 
tennial commemoration  of  the  college,  after  some  ven- 
tures in  business,  studied  law  and  began  practice  at 
St.  Joseph,  Michigan,  which  continued  until  1877, 
when  he  accepted  a  call  to  the  chair  of  English  and 
History  in  the  University  of  Kansas,  where  he  had 
among  his  contemporaries  on  the  teaching  staff  or 
Board  of  Regents  six  Williams  alumni.  Though  he 
entered  upon  his  new  vocation  without  special  prepa- 
ration, his  alertness,  magnetism,  and  genius  for  rapid 
work  carried  him  triumphantly  through  the  Kansas 
novitiate.  This  new  vocation  continued  for  twenty- 
one  years  —  fourteen  of  them  as  a  professor  in  the 
University  of  Kansas,  four  as  Chancellor  of  the  Uni- 
versity of  Nebraska,  and  three  as  President  of  the 

1  Goldwin  Smith,  Correspondence,  224. 
*  MS.  Autobiographic  sketch. 

199 


WILLIAMS  COLLEGE 

Ohio  State  University.  At  the  conclusion  of  these 
twenty-one  years  he  removed  to  New  York  and  be- 
came librarian  of  Columbia  University.  "And  there 
he  remaineth  till  this  day,"  he  wrote  in  April,  1903, 
"and  his  office  hours  for  '68  men  are  from  seven  in 
the  morning  till  midnight."  1  He  was  a  man  of  various 
and  signal  gifts  —  genial,  resourceful,  in  sympathy 
with  all  that  made  for  progress,  an  effective  writer 
and  teacher,  an  admirable  after-dinner  speaker,  and 
an  unsurpassed  raconteur. 

John  BoydThacher  (1869),  "a man  of  marvellously 
vivid  and  most  lovable  personality,"2  was  twice 
Mayor  of  Albany,  New  York,  and  once  State  Senator. 
An  ardent  supporter  of  Grover  Cleveland,  he  can- 
vassed the  State  during  his  first  campaign,  travelling 
in  a  boat  through  the  Erie  Canal  and  addressing  what- 
ever audiences  could  be  collected  along  the  banks. 
In  1896  he  declined  the  Democratic  nomination  for 
Governor.  His  deeper,  more  abiding  interests,  how- 
ever, were  literary,  not  political.  A  bibliophile  of  the 
first  rank,  his  invaluable  "Collection  of  Incunabula," 
now  in  custody  of  the  Library  of  Congress,  contains 
eight  hundred  and  forty  titles.  His  writings  comprise 
a  slender  volume  of  "Little  Speeches";  "  Charlecote, 
or  the  Trial  of  William  Shakespeare,"  —  a  brochure 
in  which  "we  have  run  the  Landorean  thread  in  and 
out  of  our  poor  loom";  "The  Continent  of  America, 
its  Discovery  and  its  Baptism  " ;  "  The  Cabotian  Dis- 
covery "  ;  "  Christopher  Columbus,"  and  "  Outlines  of 
the  French  Revolution." 

1  The  Class  of  Sixty-Eight  after  Thirty- Five  Years,  12. 

2  Catalogue  of  the  John  Boyd  Collection  of  Incunabula,  17. 

200 


HIGH  TIDES  IN  THE  CALENDAR 

Three  graduates  of  the  period  —  William  Keith 
Brooks  (1870),  Frank  Huntington  Snow  (1862),  and 
William  Dwight  Whitney  (1845)  — spent  their  lives 
in  university  work  and  made  substantial  contribu- 
tions to  the  sum  of  human  knowledge. 

Professor  Brooks,  who  died  in  1908,  was  perhaps 
"the  greatest  American  zoologist,  at  least  from  the 
viewpoint  of  philosophical  thinking."  1  His  most  im- 
portant contribution  to  this  phase  of  the  subject  is 
"Foundations  of  Zoology,"  published  in  1898.  On 
the  practical  side  of  it  he  did  notable  work  in  connec- 
tion with  the  Maryland  Oyster  Commission.  What- 
ever his  native  genius  may  have  been,  and  it  was  not 
small,  pertinacity  of  purpose  and  a  stubborn  industry 
contributed  largely  to  his  success.  At  Williams  he 
absorbed  "everything  that  stuffy  old  Jackson  Hall 
had  to  offer,  and  lived  out  of  doors  and  knew  all  the 
fauna  and  flora  around." 2 

Frank  Huntington  Snow,  valedictorian  of  the  class 
of  1862,  —  an  attractive  teacher  and  successful  execu- 
tive,—  had  been  connected  with  the  University  of 
Kansas  forty-two  years  at  the  time  of  his  death  in 
1908  —  eleven  of  them  as  Chancellor  and  the  remain- 
der as  Professor  of  Natural  History.  During  this  term 
of  service,  and  in  addition  to  the  current  tasks  of 
teaching  and  administration,  he  conducted  twenty- 
six  summer  expeditions  for  scientific  purposes,  visit- 
ing various  Western  regions — Colorado,  New  Mexico, 
and  Arizona — and  collecting  a  large  amount  of  valua- 
ble material.  Incidentally  he  discovered  a  parasite 

1  Leading  American  Men  of  Science,  432. 
1  G.  Stanley  Hall  (1867),  Gulielmensian,  XLI,  7. 
2O I 


WILLIAMS  COLLEGE 

deadly  to  the  chinch  bug  and  a  practicable  method  of 
distributing  it.  Though  he  published  no  books,  he  was 
the  author  of  one  hundred  and  sixty  papers  and  pam- 
phlets, mostly  on  scientific  subjects.  While  there  has 
been  much  turmoil  in  the  Sunflower  State  over  the 
award  of  political  credits,  no  one  will  question  the 
claims  of  Frank  Snow  to  a  conspicuous  place  among 
Kansas  educators. 

The  undergraduate  life  of  William  Dwight  Whitney 
—  first  scholar  in  the  class  of  1845,  professor  in  Yale 
University  from  1854  to  1894  —  can  hardly  be  con- 
sidered a  prophecy  of  his  subsequent  career.  Neither 
the  ancient  nor  modern  languages,  that  are  so  con- 
spicuous in  his  later  activities,  had  any  prominence 
among  his  undergraduate  enthusiasms,  which  centred 
chiefly  about  Albert  Hopkins  and  the  Natural  His- 
tory Society.  "No  small  part  of  my  time  in  college/' 
he  said,  in  the  " Forty  Years'  Record"  of  his  class, 
"was spent  in  roaming  over  the  hills  and  through  the 
valleys  collecting  birds  .  .  .  and  setting  them  up." * 
This  impulse  toward  out-of-door  things  was  not 
exactly  a  passing  mood.  It  persisted  for  a  consider- 
able period,  as  we  find  him  taking  part  in  the  survey 
of  the  Lake  Superior  region  in  1849  and  of  Colorado 
in  1873. 

Professor  Whitney  spent  the  four  years  immediately 
succeeding  graduation  in  his  father's  bank  at  North- 
ampton.    He  did  not  resume  his  studies  until  the 
autumn  of  1849,  when  he  went  to  New  Haven,  joined 
President  Woolsey's  class  in  Thucydides  and  Pro- 
fessor Salisbury's  in  Sanscrit.     These  men  quickly 
1  Forty  Years'  Record,  176. 
000 


HIGH  TIDES  IN  THE  CALENDAR 

perceived  that  he  "  had  the  scholar's  gifts  and  nature." 
Following  their  advice  he  spent  three  years  in  study 
at  the  universities  of  Tubingen  and  Berlin,  returning 
to  the  United  States  in  1853.  The  next  year  he  began 
his  long  and  distinguished  Yalensian  career  in  the 
department  of  Sanscrit  and  Comparative  Philology. 

The  bibliography  of  Professor  Whitney's  publica- 
tions contains  three  hundred  and  sixty  titles,  and 
these  publications  brought  him  abundant  recognition 
at  home  and  abroad.  In  1870  he  received  the  first 
Bopp  Prize,  awarded  by  the  Berlin  Academy  of  Sci- 
ence for  making  within  the  three  preceding  years  the 
most  important  contributions  to  Sanscrit  philology. 
On  the  death  of  Thomas  Carlyle  in  1881  he  succeeded 
him  as  a  member  of  the  Prussian  Order  of  Merit. 
While  the  general  public  may  have  known  him  chiefly 
as  the  editor  of  the  "  Century  Dictionary,"  no  man  of 
his  time  did  more  to  stimulate  and  develop  American 
scholarship.  A  great  light  went  out  in  that  world 
when,  on  the  7th  of  June,  1894,  and  at  the  age  of 
sixty-seven,  he  passed  away. 

Samuel  Chapman  Armstrong,  an  educator  of  quite 
another  type  than  the  three  university  professors, 
came  directly  from  the  Sandwich  Islands,  the  place 
of  his  birth,  to  Williamstown,  and  entered  the  class 
of  1862  at  the  beginning  of  the  Junior  year.  "You 
must  ...  see  my  new  chum,"  said  John  Henry 
Denison  (1862)  to  a  classmate.  "Who's  he?"  "A 
savage,  a  genuine  savage  .  .  .  just  caught.  You  ought 
to  see  him  knock  me  down  when  I  try  to  box  with 
him  —  but  he 's  intensely  interesting."1  It  was  a  total 
1  Raymond,  Fiftieth  Anniversary  Report,  Class  of  '62,  26. 
203 


WILLIAMS  COLLEGE 

change  in  environment  and  civilization  —  this  emi- 
gration from  the  tropics  to  Northern  Berkshire.  "I 
remember  well,"  wrote  another  classmate,  "standing 
by  his  side  as  he  caught  and  curiously  examined  the 
first  snowflake  he  had  ever  seen."  1 

Though  Armstrong  wished  to  go  to  New  Haven, 
he  never  regretted  that  he  had  been  overruled  in 
the  matter.  "I  am  more  and  more  thankful,"  he 
said  twenty  years  after  graduation,  "that  I  went  to 
Williams  College.  .  .  .  For  a  man's  own  upbuilding 
.  .  .  Dr.  Hopkins'  teaching  is  the  best  human  help  I 
know."  2 

Entering  the  army  in  1862,  he  continued  in  active 
service  until  the  close  of  the  war  and  reached  the 
rank  of  brevet  brigadier-general  of  colored  troops. 
Then  followed  his  appointment  as  Assistant  Commis- 
sioner of  the  Freedmen's  Bureau  at  Fortress  Monroe, 
a  position  which  he  relinquished  in  1867  to  undertake 
the  founding  of  Hampton  Institute.  "I  have  a  re- 
markable machine,"  he  wrote  to  the  secretary  of  his 
class  in  1874,  "f°r  the  education  of  our  colored 
brethren.  .  .  .  Put  in  a  raw  plantation  darkey  and  he 
comes  out  a  gentleman  of  the  nineteenth  century. 
The  problem  is  to  skip  three  centuries  in  the  line  of 
development  and  atone  for  the  loss  and  injustice 
of  ages." 

The  attempt  to  set  up  this  remarkable  machine 
was  regarded  in  some  quarters  as  a  blunder.  "I'm 
sorry  for  Armstrong,"  said  one  of  his  classmates.  "  If 
he  had  stayed  in  the  Freedmen's  Bureau,  he  might 
have  risen  to  a  high  government  position,  but  now 

1  Noble,  Report  of  '62  to  1902,  11.  2  Noble,  ibid.,  13. 

204 


HIGH  TIDES  IN  THE  CALENDAR 

he's  thrown  up  all  his  chances  and  gone  down  there 
to  teach  in  a  small,  insignificant  darkey  school."1 
This  classmate  lacked  the  modest  prescience  of 
Shakspere's  Egyptian  soothsayer:  — 

"In  nature's  infinite  book  of  secrecy 
A  little  I  can  read." 

He  could  not  read  at  all  in  that  book.  So  far  from 
throwing  up  his  chances,  Armstrong  inaugurated  at 
Hampton  one  of  the  great  educational  movements  of 
the  nineteenth  century. 

Ranald  Slidell  Mackenzie  (1859),  whom  General 
Grant  considered  "the  most  promising  young  officer 
in  the  army,"  2  entered  Williams  in  the  autumn  of 
1855.  "I  think,"  wrote  his  classmate  Washington 
Gladden,  "he  could  not  have  been  more  than  sixteen 
when  he  entered  college  and  wore  roundabouts  —  a 
kind  of  Eton  jacket.  Very  quiet,  modest  to  shyness, 
and  with  a  little  lisp,  Ranald  was  a  good  fellow;  we 
all  loved  him  and  were  both  sorry  and  proud  when  the 
appointment  [at  West  Point]  came  to  him.  ...  He 
left  us  early  in  our  Junior  year,  but  we  did  not  .  .  . 
forecast  his  future;  he  had  not  at  that  time  given  any 
indications  of  the  kind  of  character  he  was  to  de- 
velop." 3  Subsequent  indications  did  not  leave  the 
matter  in  doubt.  He  graduated  from  West  Point, 
June  17,  1862,  number  one  in  his  class,  entered  the 
army  immediately  as  second  lieutenant,  and  was 
brevetted  for  gallant  conduct  at  Manassas,  Chancel- 

1  Raymond,  Fiftieth  Anniversary  Report,  Class  of  '62,  26. 

2  Grant,  Personal  Memoirs,  n,  385.    The  Century  Co.,  N.Y.  1895. 
8  Washington  Gladden,  MS.  letter,  July  15,  1913. 

205 


WILLIAMS  COLLEGE 

lorsville,  Gettysburg,  Cedar  Creek,  and  Petersburg. 
And  he  had  no  charmed  life  on  the  battle-field.  At 
South  Mountain  he  was  "left  for  dead  .  .  .  plundered 
by  the  rebels,  but  managed  to  crawl  off  the  field." 
Later  he  lost  a  hand,  "  had  a  bullet  through  his  lungs/1 
and  in  the  frontier  campaigns  subsequent  to  the  Civil 
War  was  "  variously  perforated  by  Indian  arrows."  l 

Though  Mackenzie's  military  career  began  when 
the  war  had  been  in  progress  a  year,  he  won  advance- 
ment on  merit  alone,  with  no  help  from  outside 
sources,  to  the  grade  of  brevet  brigadier-general  in 
the  regular  army  and  brevet  major-general  of  volun- 
teers —  the  youngest  officer  of  his  rank  in  the  service. 

Two  graduates  of  President  Hopkins'  time  —  John 
James  Ingalls  (1855)  and  James  Abram  Garfield 
(1856)  —  won  fame  in  political  life.  For  a  year  they 
were  contemporaries  at  Williams.  Then  their  paths 
lay  apart  until  1873  when  they  renewed  the  inter- 
rupted acquaintance  as  Members  of  Congress. 

On  the  completion  of  his  legal  studies  in  1858, 
Ingalls  removed  to  Kansas,  and  in  1873  was  elected 
United  States  Senator.  He  held  the  position  eighteen 
years  and  became  a  conspicuous  figure  in  the  upper 
house  of  Congress.  Senator  Hoar,  of  Massachusetts, 
regarded  him  as  one  of  the  most  intellectual  men 
whom  he  had  known  in  the  course  of  a  long  and  varied 
experience.2  When  Ingalls  was  announced  to  speak 
the  galleries  of  the  Senate  were  thronged  by  expectant 
auditors.  His  clear,  incisive,  polished  oratory  often 
rose  to  a  stately  and  noble  eloquence. 

1  Reports,  Class  of  1859,  January  i,  1863,  July  23,  1877. 

2  Hoar,  Recollections  of  Seventy  Years,  II,  86. 

2O6 


HIGH  TIDES  IN  THE  CALENDAR 

For  a  long  period  he  was  President  pro  tempore  of 
the  Senate  and  performed  the  duties  of  that  office, 
whether  ordinary  or  occasional,  with  a  high-bred, 
distinguished  air  and  dignity.  A  function  of  the  spe- 
cial sort  occurred  on  one  22d  of  February.  In  the 
first  Administration  of  Cleveland,  Senator  Hoar,  of 
Massachusetts,  offered  a  resolution  that  Washington's 
"Farewell  Address"  should  be  read  that  day.  As  the 
Vice- President  had  died,  Ingalls,  "with  his  frock 
coat  buttoned  tightly  about  him,  his  linen  like  snow, 
and  his  resonant  voice  at  its  best,  stood  forth  at  the 
hour  of  noon"  and  read  the  "Address"  with  such 
elocutionary  and  interpretative  power  that  the  Senate 
made  the  custom  perpetual.1 

In  1891  Ingalls  was  defeated  in  his  candidacy  for  a 
fourth  senatorial  term  by  the  Farmers'  Alliance— j( 
an  organization  that  grew  up  overnight,  threw  to  the 
discard  a  man  of  national  reputation,  and  put  in  his 
place  an  unknown  and  negligible  successor.  This  dis- 
aster might  have  been  avoided  if  he  had  been  willing 
to  pay  the  price  of  success.  Friends  of  his,  it  seems, 
quietly  and  without  consulting  him  bought  up  enough 
representatives  of  the  Alliance  to  insure  his  reelection. 
When  these  very  practical  friends  called  at  his  quar- 
ters and  reported  what  had  been  done,  he  paced  the 
floor  in  silence  for  a  time,  and  then  said:  "No,  I  don't 
have  to  go  back  to  Washington,  but  I  do  have  to  keep 
my  own  self-respect.  The  whole  sordid  deal  is  off." 
Fourteen  years  later  and  five  years  after  Ingalls' 
death,  which  occurred  in  1900,  Kansas  was  in  a  re- 
pentant mood  and  made  all  the  atonement  then 

1  Boston  Transcript,  February  21,  1916. 
207 


WILLIAMS  COLLEGE 

possible  for  its  political  folly  by  placing  a  bust  of  him 
in  Statuary  Hall.  This  bust  was  received  and  ac- 
cepted by  Congress  January  2,  1905.  On  that  occa- 
sion no  less  than  eighteen  members  of  the  Senate  and 
House  of  Representatives  paid  tribute  to  his  memory.1 

One  uncomfortable  trait  —  a  penchant  for  sarcasm 
—  was  a  prolific  source  of  trouble  to  Ingalls  all  along 
the  line  from  Williamstown  to  Washington.  In  his 
undergraduate  days  nobody  on  the  campus  —  Mark 
Hopkins  always  excepted  —  escaped  the  lash  of  his 
satire.  This  early  phase  of  it  is  seen  at  its  worst  in 
" A  Brace  of  College  Characters"  —  an  essay  in  the 
" Quarterly"  describing  two  fellows  who  belonged 
to  the  deplorable  race  of  "vitalized  tailor's  models, 
animated  wig-and-whiskers  blocks,  having  just  soul 
enough  to  keep  the  body  from  decomposition." 2  The 
bad  habit  persisted  to  the  close  of  his  college  career 
and  there  was  a  flagrant  exhibition  of  it  in  his  gradu- 
ating oration  on  "  Mummy  Life."  Samuel  Bowles, 
editor  of  the  "Springfield  Republican,"  who  attended 
the  Commencement  of  1855,  said  it  was  "bitter  and 
sarcastic,  but  beautifully  written." 3  In  Washington 
his  genius  for  biting  speech  did  not  fail  to  make 
enemies. 

Yet  it  would  be  a  mistake  to  suppose  that  Ingalls 
was  only  or  chiefly  a  satirist.  Carlyle  often  concluded 
his  outbursts  of  invective  with  a  loud  guffaw,  as  much 
as  to  say,  "See  what  a  sad  dog  I  am." 4  The  Kansan's 
violences  of  language  need  some  such  key  to  their 

1  Senate  Docs.,  58th  Congress,  3d  Session,  xvi. 

2  Williams  Quarterly,  September,  1855. 

8  Springfield  Weekly  Republican,  August  18,  1855. 
4  Redesdale,  Memories,  n,  650. 
208 


HIGH  TIDES  IN  THE  CALENDAR 

interpretation.  At  all  events,  they  represent  only  a 
fraction  of  the  man.  That  he  was  no  inconsiderable 
poet  one  could  argue  confidently  from  such  verse  as 
" Opportunity,"  or  "The  Sculptor  to  his  Statue."1 
Of  landscape  beauty  he  had  the  keenest  appreciation. 
Riding  early  one  day  up  the  left  bank  of  the  Kaw,  a 
Topeka  friend  whom  he  was  visiting  relates,  "We 
came  upon  a  glorious  stretch  of  bluff  and  meadow, 
such  as  can  be  seen  only  in  Kansas.  Ingalls  raised 
his  hand  and  repeated  Shakspere's  thirty-second 
sonnet  — 

'Full  many  a  glorious  morning  have  I  seen, 
Flatter  the  mountain-tops  with  sovereign  eye, 
Kissing  with  golden  face  the  meadows  green, 
Gilding  pale  streams  with  heavenly  alchemy.' "  2 

One  number  of  the  "Williams  Quarterly "  — the 
number  for  September,  1855  —  affords  a  good  illus- 
tration of  Ingalls'  dual  nature,  as  it  contains  the  sav- 
age "A  Brace  of  College  Characters"  and  also  a  poem 
of  his  —  subdued,  pensive,  almost  spiritual  —  "Thre- 
nodia ;  A  Tribute  to  the  memory  of  Chester  Butler' ' :  — 

"The  God-beloved  die  young,  but  not  in  vain 
Their  early  fate,  their  incompleted  years; 
For  hope  survives  the  grave,  the  loss,  the  pain, 
Though  memory  smite  the  Horeb  heart  to  tears." 

James  Abram  Garfield,  born  November  19,  1831, 
came  to  Williamstown  from  the  Eclectic  Institute  at 

1  A  Williams  Anthology,  9-11. 

*  G.  R.  Peck,  in  Ingalls'  Writings,  Addresses,  and  Orations,  17.  In- 
galls was  a  man  of  "nervous,  romantic,  poetic,  and  artistic  tempera- 
ment." (Senator  J.  W.  Daniel,  of  Virginia,  in  Senate  Docs.,  58th  Con- 
gress, 3d  Session,  xvi,  45.) 

209 


WILLIAMS  COLLEGE 

Hiram,  Ohio,  just  at  the  close  of  the  college  year 
1 853-54.  The  son  of  a  frontier  farmer,  he  had  encoun- 
tered abundant  vicissitudes  and  hardships  in  pursuit 
of  an  education.  Having  decided  to  take  the  last  two 
years  of  his  undergraduate  course  at  some  Eastern 
institution,  he  wrote  letters  of  inquiry  to  several  col- 
lege presidents.  A  friendly,  personal  touch  in  the 
reply  of  Mark  Hopkins  brought  him  to  Williamstown, 
where  he  attracted  immediate  attention.  "What  do 
you  think  of  that  Westerner?  "  one  student  is  reported 
to  have  asked  another  soon  after  his  arrival.  "He  is 
not  a  slave  to  fashions,  I  conclude/1  "No,  .  .  .  but 
he  is  none  the  worse  for  that.  Put  him  into  a  tasty 
garb  and  he  would  be  a  splendid-looking  fellow."  l 

A  new  epoch  had  begun  for  Garfield.  In  the  first 
place,  the  scenery  of  Northern  Berkshire  threw  a  spell 
over  him  which  never  grew  less.  Writing  a  friend  in 
the  summer  of  1866  about  a  recent  visit  to  the  region, 
he  said  it  had  washed  out  the  footprints  of  ten  years 
and  would  be  for  him  a  fountain  of  perpetual  youth.2 
Then  his  two  college  years  there  were  a  time  of  eager, 
inspiring  work.  He  at  once  took  high  rank  as  debater, 
writer,  and  scholar.  For  the  first  time  and  with  ab- 
sorbing interest  he  read  some  of  the  great  master- 
pieces of  literature.  But,  after  all,  the  principal  thing 
for  him  in  Williams  was  the  President.  Nothing  that 
he  ever  said  or  wrote  has  been  more  widely  quoted 
than  his  epigrammatic  declaration  on  the  subject  — 
"A  pine  bench  with  Mark  Hopkins  at  one  end  of  it 
and  me  at  the  other  is  a  good  enough  college."  He 

1  Thayer,  From  Log  Cabin  to  the  White  House,  331. 

2  Bundy,  Life  of  Garfield,  44. 

2IO 


HIGH  TIDES  IN  THE  CALENDAR 

made  this  declaration  at  a  Williams  alumni  dinner  in 
New  York  January  18,  1872. 1 

Garfield's  undergraduate  contemporaries  did  not 
forecast  for  him  a  distinguished  political  future, 
until  near  the  close  of  his  college  course.  They  sup- 
posed he  would  be  a  teacher  or  clergyman.  John 
James  Ingalls  retained  a  vivid  impression  of  him 
when  his  life  at  Williamstown  was  half  finished,  re- 
calling "with  photographic  distinctness  his  personal 
appearance  on  the  occasion  of  his  delivery  of  an  ora- 
tion ...  at  the  close  of  Junior  year,  in  the  summer  of 
1855."  2  He  noted  every  peculiarity  of  physiognomy 
and  dress  —  the  bony,  muscular  frame,  the  florid 
complexion,  the  mirthful  eyes,  the  sparse,  blond  beard, 
scarcely  concealing  the  jaw  and  mouth,  the  yellow 
hair  falling  back  from  a  brow  of  unusual  height,  and 
the  ill-fitting,  country-tailored  clothes,  but  he  did  not 
detect  in  this  unconventional  Junior  speaking  on  the 
platform  of  the  old  chapel  in  Griffin  Hall  the  making 
of  a  great  orator.  No  occasion  had  as  yet  arisen  which 
afforded  any  unmistakable  indication  of  the  future. 
Such  an  occasion  came  in  May,  1856,  —  nearly  a  year 

1  Gladden,  Recollections,  72.   Dr.  Gladden  was  present  at  the  dinner, 
heard  Garfield's  speech,  and  quotes  "what  he  actually  said."    A  con- 
temporary report  of  the  speech  appeared  in  the  Williams  Vidette,  Jan- 
uary 27, 1872:  "  Offer  him  the  finest  college  buildings,  the  largest  library, 
and  the  most  complete  physical  apparatus,  and  he  would  rather  have 
Dr.  Hopkins  in  a  brick  shanty  than  them  all."    "The  last  time  I  saw 
him  alive,"  said  Senator  Ingalls,  "  —  it  was  in  the  early  summer  of  1881 

—  he  alluded  to  the  pleasure  with  which  he  anticipated  his  visit  to 
Williamstown  and  repeated  in  substance  the  declaration  of  1872  — 
1 A  pine  log  with  the  student  at  one  end  and  Doctor  Hopkins  at  the 
other  would  be  a  liberal  education. ' "  (Ingalls'  Writings,  Addresses, 
and  Orations,  405,  condensed.) 

2  Ingalls1  Writings,  Addresses,  and  Orations,  398. 

211 


WILLIAMS  COLLEGE 

after  Ingalls  graduated,  —  when  news  of  the  assault 
upon  Charles  Sumner  reached  Williamstown.  An 
indignation  meeting  was  called  and  Garfield's  speech 
on  that  occasion  made  an  extraordinary  impression. 
Undergraduates  who  heard  it  revised  their  earlier 
impressions  and  began  to  predict  for  him  a  place 
among  the  masters  of  public  speech.1  This  prophecy 
had  a  splendid  fulfilment.  A  single  illustration  of  it 
will  answer  all  present  purposes.  October  28,  1878, 
the  great  hall  at  Ithaca  was  filled  to  its  utmost  ca- 
pacity —  the  attendance  of  Cornell  students  is  said 
to  have  been  "enormous"  —  to  hear  Garfield  upon 
financial  questions  then  agitating  the  country.  "  How 
did  you  like  my  speech?  "  he  asked  his  host,  President 
Andrew  D.  White,  who  replied  —  "I  have  known 
you  too  long  and  think  too  highly  of  you  to  flatter 
you,  but  I  will  say  what  I  would  say  under  oath:  it 
was  the  best  speech  I  ever  heard."  2 

On  an  occasion  like  that  at  Ithaca,  with  a  great 
audience,  a  congenial  subject,  and  ample  prepara- 
tion, no  orator  of  the  time  could  outdo  Garfield  in 
eloquence.  He  was  less  at  home  in  the  rough-and- 
tumble  of  congressional  debate  where  Roscoe  Conk- 
ling  and  James  G.  Elaine  were  past-masters. 

The  first  public  demonstration  of  Williams  students 
in  honor  of  Garfield  was  in  1856,  the  second  twenty- 
four  years  later.  On  the  8th  of  June,  1880,  the  Repub- 
lican National  Convention  at  Chicago  nominated  him 
as  candidate  for  the  Presidency  of  the  United  States, 
and  getting  the  news  during  the  afternoon  of  that  day, 

1  Thayer,  From  Log  Cabin  to  the  White  House,  344. 

2  White,  Autobiography,  I,  188. 

212 


HIGH  TIDES  IN  THE  CALENDAR 

they  speedily  assembled  en  masse  before  the  Presi- 
dent's house,  called  for  a  speech,  which  they  did  not 
fail  to  get,  and  which  they  received  with  tremendous 
applause.  And  the  applause  reached  a  grand  cli- 
max when  in  conclusion  Dr.  Chadbourne  announced 
an  immediate  holiday  for  further  celebration  of  the 
event.  Thereupon  the  enthusiastic  young  men  pro- 
ceeded to  Alumni  Hall  and  organized  a  Garfield  club. 
In  the  evening  they  marched  to  North  Adams  and 
stirred  up  that  town.  Returning  at  a  late  hour  they 
brought  the  celebration  to  a  close  with  a  great  bon- 
fire on  the  campus  in  front  of  West  College.1 

The  last  scenes  in  Garfield's  Williamstown  history 
stand  out  in  dark,  tragic  contrast  to  all  the  sunshine 
that  had  preceded  them.  Saturday  morning,  July  2, 
1 88 1,  a  student,  evidently  agitated  by  some  unusual 
excitement,  was  noticed  running  at  full  speed  from 
the  telegraph  office  toward  the  President's  house,  and 
on  reaching  it  knocked  violently  at  the  front  door 
which  his  daughter  happened  to  open.  He  asked  ex- 
citedly for  Dr.  Chadbourne,  who  was  found  at  the 
rear  of  the  house,  talking  with  the  old  ex-slave,  Abe 
Bunter.  " Father,"  said  the  daughter,  "there  is  a 
student  in  the  library  to  see  you.  He  looks  as  if  some- 
thing dreadful  had  happened."  The  agitated  student 
brought  news  of  the  assassination  of  President  Gar- 
field.  On  that  Saturday  morning,  accompanied  by 
Secretary  Elaine,  Garfield  left  the  White  House  and 
drove  down  Pennsylvania  Avenue  in  his  carriage  to 
take  the  train  for  Williamstown,  where  he  would  re- 
vive the  inspiring  memories  of  his  college  days,  with- 
1  Williams  Athenceum,  July  2,  1880. 
213 


WILLIAMS  COLLEGE 

out  the  faintest  premonition  of  impending  calamity. 
Mr.  Elaine  said  that,  in  all  the  twenty  years  of  their 
acquaintance,  he  had  never  seen  him  in  such  high 
spirits,  in  such  exuberance  of  almost  boyish  happi- 
ness.1 A  disappointed  office-seeker,  by  the  name  of 
Guiteau,  shot  and  mortally  wounded  him  at  the  rail- 
way station. 

It  was  inevitable  that  the  tragedy  should  dominate 
the  Commencement  of  1 880-81,  the  twenty-fifth  an- 
niversary of  Garfield's  graduation.  "The  shock... 
the  grief,  the  disappointment  and  suspense,"  Mark 
Hopkins  wrote,  "were  frightful."2  Senator  Ingalls, 
who  delivered  the  oration  before  the  Adelphic  Union, 
prefaced  it  with  an  eloquent  eulogy  of  his  college 
contemporary,3  and  President  Chadbourne  began  his 
baccalaureate  sermon  in  a  similar  strain.4 

President  Garfield  died  at  Elberon,  New  Jersey, 
September  19,  and  John  James  Ingalls  was  designated 
as  one  of  the  Senate  committee  to  receive  the  remains 
at  the  Capitol  and  attend  the  funeral  at  Cleveland. 
The  afternoon  scene  in  the  Rotunda  at  Washington 
seemed  to  him  "impressive  beyond  precedent.  .  .  . 
By  the  catafalque  sat  the  new  President,  chief  bene- 
ficiary of  Guiteau's  bullet.  .  .  .  Near  by  were  the  cab- 
inet ministers,  their  dreams  of  power,  their  plans  of 
aggrandizement,  about  to  be  entombed  with  their 
dead  chieftain.  Across  the  space  was  Grant,  his  im- 
passive, resolute,  sphinx-like  face  bent  forward,  in- 
tensely pensive  .  .  .  Elbow  to  elbow  with  him  was 

1  Ingalls1  Writings,  Addresses,  and  Orations,  406. 

*  Carter,  Mark  Hopkins,  341. 

8  Springfield  Republican,  July  5,  1 88 1.         4  Ibid.,  July  4,  1 88 1. 

214 


HIGH  TIDES  IN  THE  CALENDAR 

his  successor  Hayes.  .  .  .  Farther  on  were  Sherman 
the  soldier  and  Sherman  the  Senator  .  .  .  and  Sheri- 
dan, the  victor  of  Winchester,  and  a  great  host 
of  heroes  and  statesmen  such  as  had  seldom  as- 
sembled around  the  unconscious  dust  of  an  American 
citizen."1 

Measured  on  the  scale  of  numbers  the  administra- 
tion of  President  Hopkins,  which  came  to  an  end  at 
the  Commencement  of  1871-72,  achieved  no  extraor- 
dinary success.  His  ambitions  lay  in  other  direc- 
tions. Fifty  students  a  year,  two  hundred  altogether, 
he  once  said,  contented  him.  In  only  ten  of  the  thirty- 
six  years  of  his  presidency  did  the  numbers  exceed 
these  figures  and  then  by  a  small  margin.  Beginning 
in  1836-37  with  a  registration  of  one  hundred  and 
nineteen,  they  slowly  increased  until  1849-50,  when 
the  maximum,  two  hundred  and  forty,  was  reached. 
From  this  point  a  gradual  decline  set  in,  which  con- 
tinued to  the  close  of  the  administration.  The  regis- 
tration of  the  final  year  repeated  that  of  the  first, 
one  hundred  and  nineteen,  —  a  coincidence  which 
might  seem  to  illustrate  in  some  curious  fashion  the 
subject  discussed  in  the  baccalaureate  of  1871-72, 
"The  Circular  and  the  Onward  Movement."  2 

It  is  in  his  books,  addresses,  and  classroom  rather 
than  in  executive  work  that  the  chief  sources  of  Dr. 
Hopkins'  fame,  past  and  present,  must  be  sought. 
Here  he  stands  out  in  obvious  contrast  to  the  great 
leaders  of  the  new  educational  movement  that  began 

1  Ingalls'  Writings,  Addresses,  and  Orations,  411-12. 

2  The  registration  in  the  first  year  of  President  Chadbourne's  admin- 
istration, 1872-73,  was  119. 

215 


WILLIAMS  COLLEGE 

during  the  last  years  of  his  administration  —  Gilman 
at  Johns  Hopkins,  White  at  Cornell,  Angell  at  Ann 
Arbor,  and  Eliot  at  Harvard.  Their  larger  work  lay 
in  the  field  of  organization  and  development  which 
had  little  attraction  for  the  Williams  President.1 

The  bibliography  of  Mark  Hopkins'  publications 
contains  ninety  titles.2  With  few  exceptions  these 
publications  were  written  to  be  spoken.  Only  five  — 
"The  Evidences  of  Christianity, "  "Moral  Science," 
"The  Law  of  Love  and  Love  as  a  Law,"  "An  Outline 
Study  of  Man,"  and  "The  Scriptural  Idea  of  Man "  — 
are  properly  books,  and  they  were  originally  delivered 
as  courses  of  lectures  —  all  but  the  last  in  Boston 
before  the  Lowell  Institute.3 

"The  Evidences  of  Christianity"  had  a  history 
which  is  worth  recalling.  As  the  lectures  of  which  it 
is  composed  were  not  to  begin  until  January,  1844, 
President  Hopkins  thought  he  could  easily  prepare 
them  during  the  preceding  college  vacation.  When  it 
came  he  found  that  his  mind  was  in  a  state  of  collapse. 
"I  knew  enough  about  myself  and  about  medicine," 
he  once  said,  "to  understand  that  I  must  stop.  I  had 
been  doing  the  work  of  three  men.  If  my  physical 
strength  had  not  been  great  so  that  I  was  able  to  carry 
heavy  burdens  I  do  not  see  how  the  college  could  have 
lived  at  all.  The  vacation  was  short,  and  when  the 
term  opened  in  the  autumn  my  duties  would  be  exact- 
ing. But  I  dropped  everything  and  went  into  the 
woods  for  three  weeks.  That  saved  me.  I  came  back 
and  wrote  the  lectures." 

1  The  Nation,  April  6,  1916.        *  Carter,  Mark  Hopkins,  367-70. 
8  Smith,  History  of  the  Lowell  Institute. 

216 


HIGH  TIDES  IN  THE  CALENDAR 

Commencement  Day  in  1843,  the  year  of  the  semi- 
centennial, was  August  17.  He  could  not  have  re- 
turned from  "the  woods "  much  before  the  middle  of 
September,  and  he  delivered  the  first  of  the  lectures 
Tuesday  evening,  January  16.  No  abler  defence  of 
Christianity  appeared  in  their  day.  The  rise  of  the 
higher  criticism,  however,  which  had  scarcely  been 
heard  of  in  1844,  made  trouble  in  the  orthodox  camp 
of  apologetics  and  antiquated  a  good  deal  of  its  offen- 
sive and  defensive  armament.  Take  the  case  of  the 
once  formidable  "Analogy"  of  Joseph  Butler.  It 
"has  the  effect  upon  me,  as  I  contemplate  it,"  Mat- 
thew Arnold  wrote,  "of  a  stately  and  severe  fortress, 
with  thick  and  high  walls,  built  of  old  to  control  the 
kingdom  of  evil ;  —  but  the  gates  are  open  and  the 
guards  gone."  1  In  1879  Dr.  Hopkins  made  a  resurvey 
of  the  fortress  which  he  had  built  thirty-five  years 
before  for  the  same  general  purpose  and  thought  it 
needed  attention.  "I  am  reading  upon  the  evidences 
of  Christianity,"  he  wrote,  "or  rather  on  the  changes 
in  them  since  my  book  was  published.  ...  I  would 
like  to  add  a  few  pages,  if  I  can  in  that  way  bring  the 
work  down  to  the  present  time." 2  The  new  edition, 
with  a  supplement  of  fifteen  pages,  was  published  in 

1  Arnold,  Last  Essays  in  Church  and  Religion,  140,  quoted  in  Seth's 
English  Philosophers,  207. 

2  Carter,  Mark  Hopkins,  299.    Lieutenant-Governor  Bross,  a  Wil- 
liams graduate  in  the  class  of  1838,  established  at  Lake  Forest  Uni- 
versity the  "Bross  Foundation"  for  the  publication  of  Christian  apolo- 
getics and  similar  works.    It  was  his  request  that  the  "Evidences"  of 
his  "dear  friend  and  teacher,  Mark  Hopkins,"  should  be  reprinted  as 
volume  I  of  the  Bross  Library.  Accordingly  the  trustees  of  the  Founda- 
tion purchased  the  copyright  and  issued  a  "Presentation  Edition"  of 
the  book  in  1909. 

217 


WILLIAMS  COLLEGE 

1880,  but  he  did  not  wholly  succeed  in  shutting  the 
gates  or  bringing  back  the  guards. 

The  other  four  volumes  contain  President  Hopkins' 
contributions  to  philosophy.  Between  the  first  and 
the  last  of  these  volumes  twenty-one  years  elapsed. 
Yet  they  show  little  change  or  modification  in  sub- 
stance of  doctrine.  An  interesting  episode  occurred 
toward  the  end  of  this  period  —  the  newspaper  con- 
troversy with  President  McCosh  of  Princeton.  This 
controversy  turned  upon  the  question,  "  What  is  the 
foundation  of  obligation?  "  According  to  Dr.  McCosh 
"an  action  is  right  because  it  is  right"  and  that  ends 
the  matter.  In  1830,  when  Mark  Hopkins  began  to 
teach  philosophy,  he  held  the  same  opinion.  The  doc- 
trine of  an  ultimate  right,  however,  proved  to  be  only 
a  provisional  stage  in  the  settlement  of  his  ethical 
theories.  He  finally  rejected  it  and  concluded  that  a 
reason  could  always  be  given  why  an  action  is  right  - 
because  it  leads  to  "a  good"  or  to. "the  good."1  Dr. 
Hopkins  reached  his  conclusions  independently  and 
hence  in  a  personal  sense  they  are  original.  Yet  con- 
sidered historically  they  had  been  substantially  antici- 
pated by  the  utilitarian  school  of  writers,  —  Shaftes- 
bury,  Hutcheson,  Paley,  Bentham,  and  the  Mills,  — 
the  most  brilliant  school  of  British  thinkers  and  the 
only  one  that  made  any  important  contribution  to 
philosophic  speculation.  It  is  true  that  Dr.  Hopkins 
did  not  like  the  term  "utilitarian,"  but  his  theories 
can  hardly  escape  classification  under  it. 

The  controversy  in  which  a  scholar  educated  in 
the  schools  —  pupil  of  Sir  William  Hamilton  —  was 

1  Carter,  Mark  Hopkins,  165. 
2X8 


HIGH  TIDES  IN  THE  CALENDAR 

matched  against  a  man  of  ethical  and  philosophical 
genius,  with  no  special  equipment  of  erudition,  at- 
tracted much  attention.  President  McCosh  had  such 
advantages  as  a  large  knowledge  of  books  affords.  For 
Dr.  Hopkins,  whatever  his  inclinations  and  aptitudes 
may  have  been,  the  life  of  a  scholar  was  impossible. 
During  the  first  twenty  years  of  his  administration, 
in  addition  to  the  inevitable  executive  work,  he 
"taught  all  the  studies  of  the  Senior  class,  corrected 
all  their  literary  exercises,  and  preached  every  Sun- 
day "  —  an  exacting  routine  leaving  little  time  or 
strength  for  scholastic  investigation.  The  majority 
of  teachers  that  get  attention  in  the  educational 
world  secure  it  by  research  rather  than  by  the  inde- 
pendent action  of  their  intellectual  powers.  Mark 
Hopkins  belongs  to  the  class  of  great  men  who  are 
relatively  independent  of  books  and  reading. 

During  the  first  half  of  the  last  century  questions 
of  theology  awakened  quite  as  much  public  interest 
as  debates  upon  philosophical  problems.  New  Eng- 
land college  presidents  of  the  period  could  hardly 
neglect  these  questions  and  few  of  them  were  disposed 
to  do  it.  Yet  Dr.  Hopkins  was  primarily  and  essen- 
tially a  philosopher  —  a  philosopher  of  the  cheerful, 
expectant,  optimistic  type.  The  dogmas  of  the  older 
creeds,  which  dwell  upon  the  wrath  of  God  and  the 
everlasting  perdition  of  the  impenitent,  never  ap- 
peared with  any  prominence  in  his  sermons,  books, 
or  classroom.  Commencement  Sunday  in  1864,  when 
what  might  be  called  "The  Battle  of  the  Hymns" 
was  fought,  affords  an  interesting  illustration  of  the 
tone  and  temper  of  his  theological  world.  The  key- 

219 


WILLIAMS  COLLEGE 

note  of  the  sermon  preached  at  the  morning  service 
was  given,  with  no  uncertain  sound,  by  the  hymn  that 
immediately  preceded  it:  — 

"Go  preach  my  gospel,  saith  the  Lord, 

Bid  the  whole  earth  my  grace  receive; 
He  shall  be  sav'd  that  trusts  my  word, 
He  shall  be  damrTd  that  won't  believe." 

In  the  afternoon  President  Hopkins  delivered  the 
baccalaureate  and  the  hymn  which  he  read  as  his 
prelude  to  the  discourse  had  quite  another  pitch:  — 

"My  soul,  repeat  His  praise 

Whose  mercies  are  so  great, 
Whose  anger  is  so  slow  to  rise, 
So  ready  to  abate. 

"High  as  the  heavens  are  rais'd 
Above  the  ground  we  tread; 
So  far  the  riches  of  His  grace 
Our  highest  thoughts  exceed."  * 

The  sermons,  which  for  a  long  series  of  years  Dr. 
Hopkins  preached  Sunday  mornings  in  the  college 
chapel,  were  always  extemporary.  "  I  saw  very  soon 
after  I  took  up  the  work  here,"  he  once  said,  "  that  I 
must  learn  to  think  and  talk  on  my  feet.  ...  To  write 
a  sermon  every  week  was  out  of  the  question,  so  I  was 
driven  to  speaking  without  notes."  He  acquired  an 
ease  and  facility  in  this  sort  of  discourse  which  served 
him  well  on  a  great  variety  of  occasions  —  for  exam- 
ple, at  the  annual  meetings  of  the  American  Board, 
of  which  he  was  president  thirty  years.  These  meet- 
1  Springfield  Weekly  Republican,  August  6,  1864. 
220 


HIGH  TIDES  IN  THE  CALENDAR 

ings,  attended  by  delegates  from  every  part  of  the 
country  and  from  foreign  lands  as  well,  began  Tues- 
day and  closed  Friday.  On  Thursday  evening  an 
address  was  expected  from  him;  and  this  address, 
always  unwritten,  with  its  felicity  of  diction  and  in- 
tellectual force,  its  breadth  of  outlook  and  touches 
of  local  color,  soon  came  to  be  recognized  as  one  of 
the  important  events  of  the  occasion.  Yet  at  the 
outset  he  had  doubts  about  his  call  to  this  particular 
field.  "I  am  the  more  diffident,"  he  wrote  the  sec- 
retary of  the  Board,  who  asked  him  to  make  an 
address  in  1838,  "  as  I  have  never  spoken  at  one  of  the 
larger  anniversaries  and  may  find  that  they  are  not 
my  place  at  all."  1  No  such  uncomfortable  experience 
awaited  him. 

Unlike  the  Thursday  evening  addresses  at  the 
annual  meetings  of  the  American  Board  and  the  Sun- 
day morning  sermons  at  the  college  chapel,  the  bacca- 
laureates, which  continued  to  be  a  capital  feature  of 
Williams  Commencements  from  1837  to  1872,  were 
fully  and  carefully  written  out.  So  also  were  the  nu- 
merous discourses  delivered  at  ordinations,  anniver- 
saries, and  other  public  functions.  All  these  occasional 
addresses  moved  in  the  higher  ranges  of  thought 
which  seemed  to  be  President  Hopkins'  natural 
sphere.  Then  his  style  was  quite  as  noticeable  as  his 
thinking.  He  belonged  to  the  relatively  small  group 
of  philosophers  whose  writings  have  claims  to  be  re- 
garded as  literature.  The  style  of  Paley,  if  we  may 
accept  the  dictum  of  distinguished  critics,  was  "as 
near  perfection  in  its  kind  as  any  in'our  language,"  and 
1  MS.  letter,  April  12,  1838,  in  possession  of  the  American  Board. 

221 


WILLIAMS  COLLEGE 

that  of  Berkeley  is  remarkable  "for  grace  as  well  as 
lucidity  of  expression."1  And  in  the  style  of  Dr. 
Hopkins  these  luminous,  eighteenth-century  types 
reappear.  John  Bascom,  hardly  disposed  to  over- 
rate his  merits,  calls  him  "a  rhetorician  of  the  no- 
blest order."  2 

Yet,  after  all  has  been  said  of  his  sermons  and 
addresses  and  books,  the  present-day  fame  of  Dr. 
Hopkins  is  mainly  associated  with  the  classroom.  No 
doubt  a  plausible  argument  could  be  made  to  prove 
that  the  author  builds  upon  surer  foundations  than 
the  teacher  —  that  the  latter  has  slender  advantage 
over  the  actor  who  passes  quickly  into  the  haze  of 
tradition  when  he  is  no  longer  seen  and  heard  before 
the  footlights.  But  it  is  also  true  that  the  author, 
dealing  with  high  themes  of  ethics  and  philosophy, 
has  an  uncertain  hold  upon  public  interest.  Litera- 
ture of  that  kind  does  not  as  a  general  rule  improve 
by  keeping,  and  later  generations  seldom  read  it  with 
a  "  modern  joy." 

Though  Dr.  Hopkins,  unlike  President  Wayland, 
who  fought  against  "the  harmful  tyranny  of  the  [old] 
curriculum,"  was  not  distinctly  an  educational  re- 
former, yet  some  important  and  significant  innova- 
tions, relating  to  the  order,  method,  and  scope  of  his 
work,  are  apparent.  Starting  with  the  physical  man 
he  endeavored  "to  give  an  idea  of  every  organ  and 
tissue  of  the  body."  After  these  preliminary  studies 
he  proceeded  to  consider  the  intellectual,  moral,  and 
emotive  nature.  Then  followed  a  survey  "of  constitu- 

1  Seth,  English  Philosophers,  123,  222. 
.     *  Bascom,  Things  Learned  by  Living,  105. 

222 


HIGH  TIDES  IN  THE  CALENDAR 

tional  history  and  of  the  rights  and  duties  of  American 
citizens,"  and  the  work  of  the  year  was  concluded 
with  a  consideration  of  "natural  theology  and  the 
analogy  of  the  natural  to  the  moral  government  of 
God." l  The  purpose  of  it  all,  the  end  in  view,  was  not 
primarily  to  communicate  knowledge,  but  to  set  his 
students  "intellectually  on  fire."  While  he  had  re- 
markable success  in  this  mission,  there  was  in  every 
class  a  remnant  with  which  little  could  be  done.  This 
remnant  he  quickly  recognized,  allowed  it  to  drift 
along,  and  get  out  of  the  course  whatever  might  be 
possible. 

In  Dr.  Hopkins*  classroom  the  scheme  of  study 
must  be  reckoned  a  subordinate  matter,  of  small 
account  compared  with  his  personality.  The  enthu- 
siastic words  of  Theodore  Parker  in  reference  to 
Daniel  Webster  might  be  transferred  to  him,  and 
those  who  knew  the  man  will  hardly  bring  charges 
of  exaggeration  —  "Since  Charlemagne  I  think  there 
has  not  been  such  a  grand  figure."  He  was  large- 
framed,  with  a  head  of  massive,  strikingly  intellectual 
mould.  At  times  this  personality  seemed  to  have  a 
sheer,  downright,  half-inarticulate  power.  "I  rang 
the  bell  Senior  year  at  the  end  of  the  hour,"  said  a 
member  of  the  class  of  1862,  "and  sat  near  the  door 
in  the  recitation  room  back  of  the  new  chapel  and 
quite  on  the  left  of  the  President.  One  day  he  turned 
half  about  in  his  chair,  looked  inquiringly  and  ex- 
pectantly at  me,  and  asked  a  question.  I  have  no  idea 
what  that  question  was  or  what  answer  I  gave,  but 
the  incident  made  an  impression  upon  me  which  the 
1  Hopkins,  Miscellaneous  Essays  and  Discourses,  279. 
223 


WILLIAMS  COLLEGE 

intervening  years  —  there  are  fifty-three  of  them  — 
have  not  obliterated."  l 

There  was  also  the  spell  which  waits  upon  brilliant 
and  available  intellectuality.  Yet,  however  extraor- 
dinary and  unmistakable  this  intellectuality  might 
be,  however  frank  and  luminous  in  certain  aspects, 
students  were  well  aware  that  they  knew  Mark  Hop- 
kins only  in  part.  His  ethical  doctrine,  the  processes 
of  his  philosophical  thinking,  were  in  the  clear  day- 
light; but  there  was  a  world  of  reticence  and  reserve, 
the  world  of  his  inner  and  spiritual  self,  concerning 
which  he  seldom  spoke.  On  one  winter  evening  during 
the  last  year  of  his  life  the  old  habit  of  silence  gave 
way  for  a  moment.  Referring  to  the  poetry  of  Robert 
Browning,  he  said  that  it  did  not  attract  him;  that  he 
liked  clearness  and  had  little  patience  with  obscure, 
clouded  verse,  in  which  one  must  beat  about  persist- 
ently and  painfully  to  find  the  meaning.  "But,"  he 
continued,  —  and  there  came  over  his  face  a  spiritual 
and  illuminated  expression,  as  if  he  actually  saw  "the 
light  that  never  was  on  sea  or  land,"  —  "but  I  too 
am  a  mystic."  This  man,  who  to  the  casual  observer 
might  seem  to  view  life  from  the  cool,  dispassionate 
standpoint  of  the  intellect  and  to  have  little  commerce 
with  the  countries  of  dream-land,  claimed  kindred 
with  Thomas  a  Kempis  and  Bernard  of  Clairvaux. 

In  order  that  his  students  might  not  be  wholly  un- 
prepared for  the  discussions  of  the  classroom,  Presi- 
dent Hopkins  always  used  textbooks.    Early  in  his 
work  as  Professor  of  Philosophy  he  introduced  three 
new    manuals  —  Whateley's    "  Logic,"    Wayland's 
1  Rev.  E.  E.  Lewis  (1862),  MS.  letter. 
224 


HIGH  TIDES  IN  THE  CALENDAR 

"  Moral  Science,"  and  Butler's  " Analogy."  These 
manuals  served  as  points  of  departure  for  the  discus- 
sions— furnished  the  students  with  some  knowledge 
of  the  subjects  that  would  be  considered.  He  had  the 
rare  art  of  going  directly  to  the  heart  of  them,  and  his 
progress  thither  was  accompanied  by  an  illuminating 
play  of  thought.1  This  art  was  supplemented  and 
made  extraordinarily  effective  by  a  genius  for  asking 
keen,  stimulating,  instructive  questions.  Though  a 
gladiator  of  the  first  order,  he  was  not  disposed  to 
make  any  display  of  his  power.  "I  hear  that  you 
cornered  several  Seniors  in  your  recitation  this  morn- 
ing," some  one  once  said  to  him.  "  I  never  do  that  — 
I  never  corner  men,"  was  the  almost  indignant  reply. 
A  conceited  student  might  occasionally  get  an  ugly 
fall,  but  by  his  ever-present  sense  of  humor  the  Presi- 
dent generally  managed  "to  relieve  the  immediate 
embarrassment  of  the  mishap." 

The  most  memorable  occasions,  however,  in  the 
history  of  his  classroom  were  not  those  in  which  ques- 
tions and  answers  figured.  Now  and  then  Dr.  Hop- 
kins, roused  beyond  his  wont  by  some  phase  of  the 
discussion,  broke  away  from  the  usual  routine,  and 
entered  upon  an  exposition  of  his  own  opinions.  One 
of  these  remarkable  hours  belongs  to  the  year  1852, 
when  the  subject  of  discussion  was  the  first  question 
in  the  Assembly's  Catechism  —  "What  is  the  chief 
end  of  man?"  Professor  Perry,  then  a  member  of  the 
Senior  class,  said  he  could  never  forget  the  President's 
astonishing  "display  of  rhetorical  and  moral  power" 2 

1  Bascom,  Things  Learned  by  Living,  106. 

2  Perry,  Williamstown  and  Williams  College,  515. 

225 


WILLIAMS  COLLEGE 

on  that  occasion.  A  similar  experience,  which  is  on 
record,  occurred  ten  years  later.  In  1862  the  question 
under  debate  was  Hamilton's  definition  of  faith.  "  Dr. 
Hopkins/'  wrote  President  Carter,  "spoke  in  refuta- 
tion of  it  for  nearly  half  an  hour.  ...  It  was  the  most 
impressive  incident  of  my  college  life."  1 

In  his  relations  to  members  of  the  faculty  Mark 
Hopkins  was  uniformly  courteous,  considerate,  and 
liberal.  He  had  no  ambition  for  personal  domination 
—  never  dreamed  of  applying  the  methods  of  a  ma- 
chine shop  to  an  educational  institution.  Though  he 
might  have  little  sympathy  with  theories  which  some 
of  his  associates  advocated  —  with  the  intuitionalism 
of  John  Bascom  or  the  free-trade  propaganda  of 
Arthur  Latham  Perry  —  he  never  attempted  to  lay 
restrictions  upon  their  intellectual  freedom. 

The  administration  of  President  Woolsey  —  one  of 
the  great  eras  in  the  history  of  Yale  —  was  chiefly 
distinguished  by  "the  higher  ideal  of  scholarship 
which  it  introduced." 2  In  the  Williams  of  Mark  Hop- 
kins another  goal  appears  —  not  technical  scholar- 
ship, but  "intellectual  power,  refined  taste,  and  moral 
excellence."3 

1  Carter,  Mark  Hopkins,  105. 

2  Dwight,  Memoirs  of  Yale  Life  and  Men,  339. 

1  Hopkins,  Miscellaneous  Essays  and  Discourses. 


CHAPTER  VII 

A   PERIOD  OF  TRANSITION 

PAUL  ANSEL  CHADBOURNE,  fifth  President  of  the  col- 
lege, was  born  at  North  Berwick,  Maine,  October 
25,  1823.  The  death  of  his  mother  in  1836 1  broke 
up  the  family,  and  he  went  to  live  with  a  neighbor, 
Josiah  Frye,  said  to  have  been  "  a  farmer,  a  maker  of 
ploughs  and  a  carpenter."2  Here  he  remained  three 
years,  during  the  winter  months  of  which  he  attended 
school.  Removing  to  Great  Falls,  New  Hampshire, 
he  became  a  druggist's  clerk  and  medical  student. 
This  period,  also,  like  that  in  the  household  of  the 
versatile  Josiah  Frye,  lasted  three  years.  Then,  hav- 
ing prepared  for  college  at  Phillips  Academy,  Exeter, 
he  entered  Williams  as  a  Sophomore  and  graduated 
in  1848  valedictorian  of  his  class.  A  few  weeks  later 
he  began  to  teach  at  Freehold,  New  Jersey,  where  his 
success  was  instant  and  unmistakable.  "  I  can  hardly 
go  out  of  doors  on  pleasant  evenings  now,"  he  wrote 
Albert  Hopkins,  "  without  being  followed  by  boys  to 
ask  some  question  in  regard  to  the  stars." 3  The  enthu- 
siasm of  these  boys  and  a  growing  passion  for  science 
led  him  to  reconsider  the  question  of  his  proper  voca- 
tion. Heretofore  he  had  taken  it  for  granted  that  the 
pulpit  was  the  proper  place  for  him.  But  now  a  time 

1  Chadbourne  Genealogy,  36. 

2  J.  M.  Barker,  Mass.  His.  Society  Proceedings,  Second  Series,  XVIH, 
449. 

8  MS.  letter,  January  15,  1849. 

C27 


WILLIAMS  COLLEGE 

of  doubt  set  in  and  he  was  greatly  perplexed.  "I 
found  it  impossible  ...  to  decide  myself  and  I  wrote 
.  .  .  President  [Hopkins]  and  he  advised  me  unquali- 
fiedly to  enter  the  Seminary.  .  .  .  Consequently, 
unless  something  unexpected  occurs,  I  shall  enter 
Andover  in  the  Spring."  1  But  this  advice,  though 
direct  and  positive,  did  not  exactly  "carry  a  quietus 
with  it."  "Perhaps,"  he  added  in  a  postscript,  - 
"perhaps  my  love  of  science  was  given  me  for  a  trial. 
I  wish  I  could  feel  clear  ...  it  was  an  indication  I 
ought  to  pursue."  Pulmonary  troubles  drove  him 
from  Freehold,  and  after  a  brief  period  of  rest  and 
recuperation  he  entered  the  Theological  Seminary  at 
East  Windsor  Hill,  Connecticut.  But  presently  his 
health  broke  again,  and  the  disaster  led  to  the  aban- 
donment of  his  studies  for  the  ministry.  Rallying 
from  the  attack  he  became  principal  of  the  High 
School  at  Great  Falls,  New  Hampshire,  in  the  spring 
of  1850  and  held  the  position  until  the  Williams 
Trustees  in  August,  1851,  elected  him  to  a  tutorship. 
The  following  winter  a  recurrence  of  pulmonary 
troubles  broke  up  his  work  and  compelled  him  to  take 
refuge  in  the  South,  where  he  remained  until  the  next 
spring,  when  he  returned  to  East  Windsor  Hill  and 
took  charge  of  an  academy  recently  established  there. 
The  Williams  Trustees,  however,  had  not  lost  sight  of 
Principal  Chadbourne,  and  in  August,  1853,  elected 
him  to  the  chair  of  Chemistry  and  Botany.  He  gave 
up  the  chemistry  at  the  close  of  the  college  year  1857- 
58,  and  was  transferred  to  the  chair  of  Natural  His- 
tory. This  position  he  held  until  1867,  when  the 
1  MS.  letter,  January  15,  1849. 
228 


PAUL  ANSEL  CHADBOURNE 

I872-I88I 


A  PERIOD  OF  TRANSITION 

Trustees  "  reluctantly  accepted  "  his  resignation  "with 
grateful  acknowledgments  of  his  eminent  service  to 
the  college."  l  Since  the  work  at  Williamstown  occu- 
pied only  half  of  the  year  he  spent  the  remainder  of  it 
elsewhere  —  at  Bowdoin  College,  the  Maine  Medical 
School,  Mount  Holyoke  College,  Berkshire  Medical 
Institution,  or  Western  Reserve  College. 

Professor  Chadbourne  went  from  Williams  to  the 
presidency  of  the  new  State  Agricultural  College  at 
Amherst  in  the  autumn  of  1867.  He  was  interested  in 
the  project  and  entered  upon  the  consideration  of 
ways  and  means  with  characteristic  ardor.  "It  is 
most  difficult,"  he  said  in  a  speech  before  the  Massa- 
chusetts Board  of  Agriculture,  December  n,  1866, 
"to  decide  what  is  to  be  done.  .  .  .  However,  the 
ground  has  been  well  mapped  out.  ...  I  shall  feel  it 
my  duty  to  see  the  experiment  fairly  tried,  if  I  never 
receive  a  cent  for  my  services  —  if  I  have  to  go  abroad 
and  lecture  ...  in  order  to  make  a  living.  .  .  .  For 
the  first  class  that  comes  here  I  expect  to  do  a  great 
deal  of  the  teaching  myself,  and  if  necessary  and  I 
cannot  get  any  one  ...  to  help  me,  I  will  do  it  all."  2 
But  his  work  at  Amherst  came  to  a  sudden  close. 
Only  seven  months  had  passed  when  the  persistent 
demon  of  ill-health  intervened  and  sent  him  from 
New  England  to  Wisconsin,  where,  as  President  of 
the  State  University,  —  a  position  which  he  held 
two  years,  —  he  found  a  large  and  inviting  field.  His 
push  and  versatility,  his  attractiveness  and  skill  as 
a  teacher,  and  his  ready  gifts  of  eloquent  speech  in 

1  Records  of  the  Trustees,  July  30,  1867. 
1  Mass.  Board  of  Agriculture,  Report,  1866-67,  32. 
229 


WILLIAMS  COLLEGE 

public  assemblies  won  general  applause.  The  univer- 
sity entered  upon  a  new  and  signal  era  of  progress, 
"  mainly  due  to  his  ability,  energy,  and  incessant 
labors."  l  But  the  strain  of  the  position  and  some 
chafing  against  Western  conditions  and  tendencies 
brought  his  prosperous  administration  to  an  end  in 
1870.  After  leaving  Wisconsin  he  spent  nearly  two 
years  among  the  Rocky  Mountains  in  the  pursuit  of 
health  and  the  investigation  of  mines.  Returning  to 
Williamstown  in  1872,  he  followed  Mark  Hopkins  as 
President  of  the  college.  Though  there  were  other 
candidates,  he  would  probably  have  been  elected  in 
any  event,  but  the  fact  that  he  was  the  choice  of  his 
predecessor  made  the  succession  inevitable.2  No 
doubt  the  offer  of  the  position  gratified  him,  yet  de- 
pressing reflections  accompanied  the  acceptance  of  it. 
"  Probably  I  shall  undertake  the  work,"  he  wrote  to  a 
friend.  "I  am  sorry  to  do  so.  I  prefer  freedom - 
much  prefer  it  —  to  mix  more  freely  with  men  than  I 
can  as  president  of  a  college.  But  if  I  take  hold  of  the 
work  I  must  do  my  best.  The  college  needs  hard  work 
and  I  must  be  prepared  to  devote  to  it  at  least  ten 
years  of  ...  my  life.  I  have  already  given  it  fifteen." 
The  inauguration  took  place  July  27,  1872.  Ap- 
praised by  the  temper  and  quality  of  the  exercises 
it  was  a  notable  occasion.  The  speakers  were  all 
Williams  men  —  the  retiring  President,  representa- 
tives of  the  Trustees,  the  faculty,  the  alumni,  and  the 
undergraduates.  In  a  certain  sense  the  address  of 

1  Carpenter,  Historical  Sketch  of  the  University  of  Wisconsin,  53. 
Regents'  Report,  1870,  54. 

2  Perry,  Williamstown  and  Williams  College,  654-56. 

230 


A  PERIOD  OF  TRANSITION 

Mark  Hopkins  dominated  the  exercises.  He  was  tak- 
ing leave  of  a  position  in  which  he  had  won  great  dis- 
tinction, and  naturally  on  such  an  occasion  he  looked 
backward  as  well  as  roundabout.  Glancing  over  the 
now  completed  history  of  his  own  administration  and 
discussing  briefly  some  present-day  problems  of  edu- 
cation, he  gave  his  successor  a  gracious  and  reassur- 
ing welcome.  Scarcely  less  notable  was  the  address 
of  John  Bascom  in  behalf  of  the  faculty  —  an  address 
dealing  with  the  theories  and  conditions  of  successful 
college  work.  James  Abram  Garfield  spoke  for  the 
alumni  and  paid  a  tribute  to  Mark  Hopkins  so  fer- 
vent and  unlimited  that  it  grated  somewhat  on  the 
sensitive  ears  of  his  successor.  The  undergraduate 
representative,  Robert  Meech  Chamberlain  (1873), 
struck  a  different  note,  blending  cheerful  prophecies 
of  what  shall  be  with  appreciation  of  what  has  been. 
"The  past,"  he  said,  "is  rich  in  legacies  of  inspiring 
memories.  Its  record  is  a  grand  one.  .  .  .  But,  Sir,  on 
the  .  .  .  scroll  of  the  future  there  is  yet  to  be  inscribed 
a  history  more  glorious.  Into  your  hands  we  give  the 
scroll  with  faith  in  the  result."  l 

In  his  inaugural  —  a  vigorous  and  telling  address  — 
President  Chadbourne  discussed  "the  new  educa- 
tion," which  was  then  "in  a  transition  state,  ...  to  be 
tried  and  wrecked  or  pass  to  a  higher  life." 2  We  are 
met,  he  said,  by  antagonistic  demands.  Some  think 
the  college  has  fallen  behind  the  times  and  needs  a 
radical  reconstruction,  while  others  are  equally  confi- 
dent in  reaching  opposite  conclusions.  As  for  himself 
he  saw  no  occasion  for  sweeping  and  radical  reforms. 

1  The  Inauguration  of  President  Chadbourne,  20.  *  Ibid.,  25. 

231 


WILLIAMS  COLLEGE 

"  In  my  judgment  the  instruction  in  Williams  College 
has,  upon  the  whole,  afforded  as  true  a  type  of  high  edu- 
cation as  that  of  any  college  in  our  land."  l  The  great 
need,  he  insisted,  was  enlargement,  not  revolution. 

When  the  old  order  changes,  the  era  of  transition  is 
seldom  found  to  be  altogether  pleasant.  The  difficul- 
ties at  Williamstown  were  serious.  Some  annoyances 
of  a  personal  sort  could  not  be  escaped.  President 
Chadbourne  succeeded  an  extraordinary  man,  and 
comparisons,  whether  odious  or  not,  were  inevitable. 
For  a  generation  the  sermons  of  Dr.  Hopkins  at  Com- 
mencement had  been  famous.  What  impression  would 
the  sermons  of  his  successor  make?  Could  he  sustain 
the  traditions  of  the  time  and  place?  As  President 
Chadbourne  rose  Sunday  afternoon,  June  29,  1873,  — 
a  slender,  alert  figure,  his  face  refined  and  intellec- 
tual, with  keen,  restless  eyes  gleaming  through  gold- 
bowed  spectacles,  and  a  grey,  flowing  beard,  —  to  begin 
his  first  baccalaureate,  he  confronted  an  audience 
friendly,  perhaps,  but  questioning  and  half  sceptical. 
Weighed  in  the  balances  of  this  ordeal  he  was  not 
found  wanting.  "Those  who  had  the  pleasure  of  lis- 
tening to  the  sermon,"  wrote  the  editor  of  "Vidette," 
"regarded  it  as  a  clear,  impressive,  and  vigorous  ef- 
fort, worthy  of  President  Chadbourne  and  the  repu- 
tation of  the  college.  If  any  anxiety  was  felt  as  to 
his  ability  to  meet  the  occasion,  this  feeling  was  soon 
dissipated  and  all  recognized  that  the  college  had  at 
its  head  a  man  of  power  fully  adequate  to  ...  the 
exigencies  of  the  position."  2 

1  The  Inauguration  of  President  Chadbourne,  27. 

2  Williams  Vidette,  September  20,  1873. 

232 


A  PERIOD  OF  TRANSITION 

A  far  more  serious  matter  than  the  exigencies  of 
Baccalaureate  Sunday  was  the  fact  that  the  last  three 
or  four  years  had  been  a  period  of  depression  and 
alarm.  Ghosts  of  old  controversies  over  removal, 
which  were  thought  to  have  been  effectually  laid, 
showed  signs  of  life.  "Williams,"  said  a  writer  in  the 
"Review,"  "is  not  what  she  should  be.  ...  She  has 
scarcely  more  than  half  the  students  she  once  had. 
...  Is  there  any  secret  malady  preying  on  her  vitals?  "  1 
"Will  it  pay,"  asked  a  writer  in  the  same  magazine 
three  days  before  President  Chadbourne  delivered 
his  first  baccalaureate,  —  "will  it  pay  to  retain  the 
college  at  Williamstown?  Shall  we  not  be  more 
central,  have  more  ad  vantages  .  .  .  if  we  could  receive 
an  offer  of  beautiful  grounds  and  assistance  (and  this 
is  not  impossible)  in  the  flourishing  town  of  Pitts- 
field?"2  One  member  of  the  faculty,  however,  had 
little  sympathy  with  the  croakers.  He  was  confident 
that  they  misunderstood  the  situation.  "We  take  it 
upon  ourselves  to  assert  in  the  strongest  terms," 
wrote  Arthur  Latham  Perry,  "that  the  college  is  not 
going  down,  but  steadily  coming  up.  .  .  .  Now  at 
length  ...  a  first-rate  education  in  all  departments 
can  be  gained  upon  this  ground." 3 

Moreover,  another  matter  had  been  disturbing  the 
college.  It  was  nothing  less  than  a  formidable  effort 
to  transform  it  into  a  coeducational  institution.  At 
their  meeting  in  1871  the  alumni  appointed  a  com- 
mittee on  the  subject.  The  next  year  two  reports  were 
made,  one  by  a  majority  of  the  committee — Francis 

1  Williams  Review,  November  6,  1871. 

8  Ibid.,  June  24,  1872.  8  Ibid.,  June  27,  1870. 

233 


WILLIAMS  COLLEGE 

Henshaw  Dewey  ( 1 840) ,  Clement  Hugh  Hill  ( 1 856),  and 
Henry  Hopkins  (1858)  — against  the  proposed  inno- 
vation, and  a  minority  report  favoring  it  by  John  Bas- 
com  and  David  Dudley  Field.  A  final  decision  was  not 
reached  until  the  Commencement  of  1873,  when  the 
alumni  adopted  the  majority  report  —  a  disposition 
of  the  question  satisfactory  to  President  Chadbourne 
and  to  nine  tenths  of  the  friends  of  the  college. 

In  the  plans  and  forecas tings  of  President  Chad- 
bourne  the  faculty  had  the  first  place.  "Professors," 
he  said  in  his  inaugural,  "are  sometimes  spoken  of  as 
working  for  the  college.  They  are  the  college."  Of 
this  doctrine  he  had  long  been  a  vigorous  advocate. 
"An  institution,"  he  declared  six  years  earlier  in  an 
address  before  the  Massachusetts  State  Board  of 
Agriculture,  "is  made  up  of  its  president  and  faculty. 
Give  us  that  and  ...  a  barn  to  work  in  if  you  please."  l 
And  President  Chadbourne  had  immediate  occasion 
to  put  his  theories  into  practice.  The  resignation  of 
three  prominent  members  of  the  faculty  in  1 872  — 
Arthur  Williams  Wright,  William  Reynolds  Dimmock, 
and  Franklin  Carter  —  necessitated  its  partial  recon- 
struction. And  he  was  fortunate  in  securing  as  their 
successors  Ira  Remsen  (College  of  the  City  of  New 
York,  1865)  for  the  chair  of  Physics  and  Chemistry; 
Orlando  Marcellus  Fernald  (Harvard,  1864)  for  that 
of  Greek,  and  Edward  Herrick  Griffin  (1862)  for  that 
of  Latin.  Nor  did  he  fall  below  this  high  standard  in 
subsequent  appointments  like  those  of  George  Lan- 
sing Raymond  (1862);  Truman  Henry  Safford  (Har- 
vard, 1854),  an(l  Lewellyn  Pratt  (1852). 
1  Reports,  1866-67,  46- 
234 


A  PERIOD  OF  TRANSITION 

While  no  radical  changes  disturbed  the  curriculum, 
it  was  considerably  amplified  and  enriched.  A  wider 
range  of  work  appears  especially  in  the  sciences,  in 
the  classics,  and  in  modern  languages.  Requirements 
for  admission  were  stiffened  by  the  addition  of  four 
books  of  Caesar,  one  book  of  Homer,  elementary 
Greek  prose,  and  tests  in  English  composition.  On 
occasion,  however,  the  earliest  and  mildest  require- 
ments might  suddenly  displace  the  later  and  severer 
code.  An  illustration  of  this  sort  of  renaissance  oc- 
curred the  day  before  the  opening  of  the  fall  term  in 

1879,  when  a  young  man   from  Salem  arrived  in 
Williamstown  to  enter  the  Freshman  class.  His  first 
business  was  to  see  Dr.  Chadbourne,  whom  he  found 
at  the  chapel  superintending  a  gang  of  workmen  and 
addressed  as  "  Mr.  President."  "How  did  you  know  I 
was  a  President?  "   "  I  thought  you  looked  like  one," 
was  the  quick  reply.  Either  the  compliment  or  some- 
thing else  put  him  in  a  good-natured  mood,  led  him 
to  forget  all  the  rules  printed  in  the  catalogue,  and 
to  accept  one  of  the  briefest  and  most  informal  cer- 
tificates in  the  history  of  the  institution.  This  certifi- 
cate was  written  on  a  half-sheet  of  small  note-paper 
and  contained  one  sentence  of  six  words  —  "Henry 
Lefavour  is  fitted  for  college. " 

Though  the  interests  of  the  teaching  staff  held  the 
first  place,  it  was  obvious  enough  that  the  treasury 
needed  more  money  and  the  campus  new  buildings. 
President  Chadbourne  struggled  to  increase  the  en- 
dowment, but  without  much  success.  The  financial 
depression,  which  began  in  1872  and  continued  until 

1880,  frustrated  all  his  plans.  Yet  much  was  done  to 

235 


WILLIAMS  COLLEGE 

improve  the  appearance  of  the  town  —  fences  in  front 
of  the  houses  were  removed,  sidewalks  built,  and 
lights  placed  in  the  streets  at  night.  Three  small 
buildings  —  the  Field  Memorial  Observatory,  a  gym- 
nasium, and  Clark  Hall  —  were  added  to  the  equip- 
ment of  the  campus.  Of  these  buildings  the  observ- 
atory alone  survives.  The  gymnasium,  a  slight, 
wooden,  provisional  affair,  collapsed  in  a  gale  which 
swept  through  the  region  during  the  Commencement 
of  1883.  Clark  Hall,  becoming  unsafe  through  some 
structural  defect,  was  taken  down,  and  its  name 
transferred  in  1908  to  another  building  on  a  different 
site. 

A  popular  instructor  and  professor,  Dr.  Chadbourne 
entered  upon  his  duties  as  President  with  the  good- 
will of  the  undergraduates.  But  this  early  harmony 
did  not  continue  unbroken.  He  was  in  temperament 
and  theory  a  disciplinarian.  "I  do  not  believe/*  he 
once  wrote,  "in  tolerating  or  ignoring  the  vices  and 
follies  of  young  men."  l  The  preceding  administration 
had  been  one  of  easy-going,  paternal  methods  and  the 
change  to  a  more  vigorous  policy  of  supervision  and 
control  was  sure  to  make  at  least  temporary  trouble. 
For  a  considerable  period  he  took  personal  charge  of 
the  whole  vexatious  business  of  discipline,  but  at  the 
beginning  of  the  academic  year  1877-78  he  transferred 
a  part  of  it  to  the  faculty.  "  I  desire  to  be  relieved, " 
he  said,  "of  a  portion  of  that  responsibility  which  I 
have  found  it  necessary  to  exercise  since  I  came  here/' 2 
A  formal  police  system  was  put  in  operation  and  mem- 

1  Williams  Athenceum,  February  n,  1882. 
*  Records  of  the  Faculty,  1877-78. 
236 


A  PERIOD  OF  TRANSITION 

bers  of  the  faculty  served  as  " officers  of  the  day/' 
The  system  had  a  brief,  troubled  life,  and  the  early 
abandonment  of  it  must  have  been  a  welcome  relief 
for  all  concerned,  as  one  may  readily  perceive  from 
an  editorial  paragraph  in  the  "Athenaeum":  "The 
faculty  do  not  now  .  .  .  patrol  the  town,  nor  go  out 
after  dark  and  lose  their  hats  and  canes,  nor  have  to 
be  taken  home  by  sub-freshmen.  ...  It  seems  per- 
fectly absurd  .  .  .  that  the  whole  faculty  should  re- 
solve itself  into  a  police  force." l 

But  the  early  irritations  and  disturbances  gradually 
subsided  and  a  happier,  more  appreciative  era  suc- 
ceeded. "Students  have  often  complained,"  wrote 
the  editor  of  the  "Athenaeum"  in  1880,  "of  President 
Chadbourne's  severe  i  kindergarten '  policy,  but  on 
the  whole  it  has  turned  out  to  be  a  good  one." 2  The 
great  and  regrettable  mischief  of  undergraduate  criti- 
cism lay  in  its  effect  upon  the  victim  of  it.  He  did 
not  succeed  in  hardening  himself  against  this  new 
experience  and  lost  somewhat  of  that  splendid,  con- 
tagious enthusiasm  which  heretofore  had  character- 
ized his  work. 

One  heavy  calamity  befell  President  Chadbourne 
in  the  summer  vacation  of  1877  and  darkened  his  sky, 
upon  which,  only  a  few  weeks  before,  not  a  cloud,  he 
said,  could  be  seen  —  the  sudden  death  of  Professor 
Sanborn  Tenney,  while  on  a  scientific  expedition  in 
the  Rocky  Mountains.  "I  desire,"  he  remarked  in 
his  touching  memorial  address,  "here  to  express  pub- 
licly .  .  .  the  sense  I  have  of  irreparable  loss.  ...  He 

1  Williams  Athenceum,  June  14,  1879. 
1  Ibid.,  September  25,  1880. 

237 


WILLIAMS  COLLEGE 

was  a  man  to  meet  me  cordially  and  give  me  his  sym- 
pathy and  support  in  all  the  trying  days  of  my  early 
administration  .  .  .  his  very  presence  was  a  comfort 
...  a  constant  source  of  strength." l  Undoubtedly  this 
calamity  tended  to  dishearten  him,  to  abate  his  inter- 
est and  hopefulness  in  the  work  at  Williams  town. 

During  the  Commencement  of  1880  Dr.  Chad- 
bourne  announced  that  he  should  retire  from  the  presi- 
dency at  the  close  of  the  next  academic  year.  "The 
news  .  .  .  came  as  a  bolt  out  of  a  clear  sky  .  .  .  and  is 
quite  universally  deplored."2  He  made  no  definite 
statement  of  the  reasons  which  led  him  to  take  this 
step.  On  the  contrary,  he  intimated  that  such  a  state- 
ment would  then  be  premature.  A  variety  of  elements 
doubtless  entered  into  his  decision  —  the  heavy  and 
irritating  burden  of  executive  responsibility ;  certain 
Williamstown  friendships,  once  intimate,  now  cooled 
and  strained ;  perplexities  in  business  enterprises ;  dis- 
turbances of  a  native  restlessness  and  passion  for 
change,  and  the  attractive  call  of  what  seemed  to  be 
an  important  and  lucrative  literary  venture. 

A  committee  of  the  Trustees,  to  whom  President 
Chadbourne's  resignation  was  referred,  reported  that 
"every  possible  effort  had  been  made  to  induce  him 
to  withdraw  it."3  "If  you  will  remain,"  said  one  of 
the  committee,  "as  the  executive  officer,  being  re- 
lieved of  all  teaching  and  preaching  .  .  .  this  seems  to 
me  .  .  .  the  right  thing  for  the  college  and  for  you."4 
And  the  chairman  of  this  committee  wrote  in  the 

1  Chadbourne,  In  Memoriam,  17. 

2  Springfield  Republican,  July  8,  1880. 

8  New  York  Observer,  February  17,  1881. 

4  F.  H.  Dewey,  MS.  letter,  December  24,  1880. 

238 


A  PERIOD  OF  TRANSITION 

same  strain  —  "  If  you  will  stay  there  is  no  other  man 
to  be  mentioned  or  thought  of  for  a  moment."  l 

All  the  dissuasive  efforts  failed  and  President 
Chadbourne  preached  his  final  baccalaureate  Sunday 
morning,  July  3,  1881.  He  began  his  discourse  with 
reflections  upon  the  calamity  at  Washington  and  con- 
cluded it  in  a  reminiscent,  half -wistful,  personal  strain. 
"It  comes  to  you  and  me,"  he  said,  addressing  the 
graduating  class,  "  to  go  forth  from  college  at  the  same 
time  and  begin  a  new  work  in  the  world  ....  Thirty 
years  ago  I  sat  as  you  now  sit  to  listen  to  last  words  of 
instruction.  I  go  forth  with  devout  thankfulness  to 
God  for  the  years  he  has  permitted  me  to  labor  and 
with  the  hope  of  still  more  abundant  labors  in  the 
years  to  come.  But  whether  the  time  for  me  is  to  be 
measured  only  by  days  or  by  decades  ...  I  wish  to 
publicly  record  my  thanksgiving  to  my  heavenly 
father  for  the  blessing  of  life  itself  and  for  the  daily 
rewards  that  have  come  to  me  in  all  my  work  —  re- 
wards compared  with  which  the  trials,  losses,  disap- 
pointments of  life  are  ...  as  nothing." 2  The  time  for 
him  was  not  measured  by  decades  —  he  died  Febru- 
ary 23,  1883,  at  the  age  of  fifty-nine,  "leaving  a  deep 
sense  of  an  unfinished  career."  3 

In  the  formalities  of  parting  there  was  one  event  of 
more  than  routine  significance.  At  a  meeting  of  the 
Trustees,  the  Rev.  Dr.  Prime,  veteran  editor  of  the 
"New  York  Observer,"  after  reading  the  resolutions 
they  had  passed,  turned  to  President  Chadbourne 

1  E.  C.  Benedict,  MS.  letter,  September  9,  1880. 

2  Springfield  Republican,  July  4,  1881. 

3  Mass.  His.  Society,  Proceedings,  xx,  107. 

239 


WILLIAMS  COLLEGE 

and  said:  "  Among  the  illustrious  names  that  will  live 
in  the  history  of  the  institution,  yours  will  now  take 
its  place,  and  whatever  may  be  the  glory  of  the  future 
no  brighter  record  of  prosperity  will  be  found  on  any 
page  than  that  made  brilliant  by  your  administra- 
tion." 1  This  record  was  not  one  of  new  buildings  or 
large  endowments,  but  of  revived  faith  and  courage. 
The  tide,  which  for  years  had  been  running  against 
the  institution,  turned.  Gratifying  and  conclusive 
evidence  of  changing  conditions  appeared  in  the  reg- 
istration of  students,  since  it  rose  from  one  hundred 
and  nineteen  in  1872  to  two  hundred  and  twenty- 
seven  in  1 88 1  —  a  relative  growth  surpassing  that  of 
any  other  New  England  college.  Three  hundred  and 
fourteen  men  were  graduated  during  these  nine  years, 
many  of  whom  have  done  or  are  doing  good  service 
in  the  world's  work.  An  unusual  proportion  of  them 
became  educators  —  nearly  eleven  per  cent  occupy- 
ing professors'  chairs  in  medical  schools,  theological 
seminaries,  colleges  and  universities.  One  of  the  most 
distinguished  of  these  educators  died  in  1909,  Charles 
Gross  (1878),  Gurney  Professor  of  History  and  Polit- 
ical Science  at  Harvard,  and  "the  first  authority  in 
the  English-speaking  world  upon  a  wide  range  of 
questions  ...  in  constitutional  history."2  A  more 
indefatigable  and  universal  student  never  came  to 
Williamstown.  His  roommate  is  said  to  have  regu- 
larly left  him  at  his  desk  when  he  retired  at  night  and 
found  him  there  in  the  morning.3  He  seems  to  have 

1  Inauguration  of  President  Franklin  Carter,  6. 

2  Emerton,  Mass.  His.  Society,  Proceedings,  XLIII,  190. 
8  Haskins,  Ibid.,  XLIX,  161. 

240 


A  PERIOD  OF  TRANSITION 

been  on  terms  of  intimacy  with  President  Chadbourne, 
and  wrote  from  Paris  thanking  him  for  the  very  "kind 
answer  to  my  last  letter.  ...  I  regard  your  advice  .  .  . 
as  words  of  wisdom  which  the  wise  must  unhesitat- 
ingly heed."1 

Paul  Chadbourne  was  the  most  versatile  and  inces- 
santly active  of  Williams  Presidents.  It  is  quite  pos- 
sible, as  Mark  Hopkins  hinted  at  his  inauguration, 
that  a  little  more  concentration  would  have  been  wise. 
He  had  considerable  business  interests  at  Williams- 
town  and  North  Adams.  In  1865  and  again  in  1866 
he  was  a  member  of  the  Massachusetts  Senate;  in 
1876  a  delegate  to  the  Republican  National  Conven- 
tion, and  in  1880  a  Presidential  elector  at  large.  His 
publications,  mostly  on  scientific,  ethical,  agricul- 
tural, and  educational  topics,  comprise  more  than  fifty 
titles.  He  delivered  one  series  of  lectures  before  the 
Smithsonian  Institution,  and  three  before  the  Lowell 
Institute.  A  volume  of  his  baccalaureates  was  pub- 
lished in  1878.  While  they  may  have  lacked  the  philo- 
sophic depth  and  scope  which  characterized  those  of 
Mark  Hopkins,  they  were  direct,  pungent,  and  effec- 
tive. 

Like  his  immediate  predecessor,  President  Chad- 
bourne  was  at  his  best  in  the  classroom.   An  incident 
related  by  Dr.  Carter,  though  taking  place  elsewhere, 
shows  what  might  be  expected  in  it.    ' '  Two  or  three 
years  ago  I  went  to  him  with  ...  a  botanist  who  had 
found  on  these  hills  new  appearances  of  plant  life. 
They  were  not  in  flower,  and  there  was  no  way  of 
determining  their  belongings  except  by  laying  them 
1  Gross,  MS.  letter  to  President  Chadbourne. 
241 


WILLIAMS  COLLEGE 

before  one  who  knew  them  well.  Dr.  Chadbourne 
knew  them  all  either  by  touch  or  by  taste  or  by  smell, 
and  we  saw  how  every  one  of  his  senses  was  trained 
to  test  the  facts  of  the  physical  world,  and  as  one  after 
another  fell  into  its  right  class,  and  his  memory  that 
had  been  stored  with  a  multitude  of  other  facts  .  .  . 
brought  out  name  after  name  and  he  said  with  a 
smile,  '  It  is  a  long  time  since  I  have  analyzed  these 
flowers,'  we  were  deeply  impressed  with  the  native 
force  of  his  mind  and  his  ardent  love  of  nature."  l 

Here  he  was  on  familiar  ground,  but  if  an  emergency 
arose,  nobody  could  meet  it  with  greater  success. 
While  lecturing  on  chemistry  at  Bowdoin  College,  a 
sudden  vacancy  occurred  in  the  department  of  Phi- 
losophy and  some  one  suggested  that  the  work  should 
be  turned  over  to  Dr.  Chadbourne.  "He  has  never 
made  a  study  of  that  subject,"  it  was  objected. 
"Perhaps  not,"  was  the  reply,  "but  he'll  not  teach  it 
to  the  Seniors  six  weeks  before  half  the  class  will 
think  him  the  best  instructor  of  the  subject  in  the 
country." 2  And  the  prophecy  was  literally  fulfilled. 

The  classroom  lectures  of  President  Chadbourne 
were  often  of  a  high  order.  Clear  and  logical  in  method, 
seizing  upon  interesting  and  vital  points  of  a  subject, 
handling  his  material  with  apparent  ease,  he  rose  at 
times  from  the  ordinary,  didactic  plane  into  regions 
of  illuminated  and  impassioned  speech. 

1  Carter,  MS.  address  at  the  funeral  of  President  Chadbourne. 
*  Raymond,  Fiftieth  Anniversary  Report,  Class  of  '62,  43. 


CHAPTER  VIII 

THE   NEW   WILLIAMS 


IT  is  not  always  easy  to  fix  upon  exact  dates  in  proc- 
esses of  evolution,  but  the  New  Williams  may  be 
said,  with  sufficient  accuracy,  to  have  begun  July  6, 
1 88 1 ,  when  Franklin  Carter  was  inaugurated  successor 
to  President  Chadbourne.  To  him  belongs  the  honor 
of  getting  the  latter-day  college  under  way.  Born  at 
Waterbury,  Connecticut,  September  13,  1837,  a  grad- 
uate of  Phillips  Academy,  Andover,  entering  Yale  in 
the  class  of  1859  and  its  first  scholar,  failure  of  health 
compelled  him  to  leave  New  Haven  at  the  close  of  the 
Sophomore  year  and  to  abandon  all  college  work  until 
the  autumn  of  1860.  He  then  entered  the  Junior  class 
at  Williams  and  graduated  in  1862.  Three  years  later 
and  after  a  period  of  study  abroad  he  returned  to  his 
Alma  Mater  as  Professor  of  Latin  and  French,  hold- 
ing the  latter  position  until  1868  and  the  former  until 
the  close  of  President  Hopkins'  administration  in 
1872,  when  he  resigned  and  accepted  the  chair  of 
German  at  Yale. 

While  the  inauguration  could  not  wholly  escape 
from  the  heavy  shadows  of  the  tragedy  at  Washing- 
ton, yet  it  was  an  interesting  and  hopeful  occasion. 
For  the  first  time  a  representative  of  another  college 
—  President  Noah  Porter  of  Yale  —  took  part  in  the 

243 


WILLIAMS  COLLEGE 

induction  of  a  Williams  President.  Paul  Ansel  Chad- 
bourne  gave  his  successor  a  sobered  but  cordial  wel- 
come. An  unmistakable  note  of  friendliness  and  ex- 
pectation pervaded  the  addresses  that  followed  — 
the  addresses  of  Edward  Herrick  Griffin  (1862),  of 
Francis  Lynde  Stetson  (1866),  and  of  Thomas  Sars- 
field  Pagan  (1882),  who  spoke  for  the  faculty,  the 
alumni,  and  the  undergraduates  respectively.  In  his 
inaugural  —  a  vigorous,  penetrating,  and  scholarly 
address  —  President  Carter  discyssed  the  relation  of 
the  college  to  the  university  and  defended  the  old- 
fashioned  doctrine  that  "the  studies  of  the  ancient 
languages  and  the  mathematics  .  .  .  should  constitute 
a  large  part  of  undergraduate  work."  1  This  conserv- 
ative inaugural  was  the  unprophetic  prelude  to  a 
revolutionary  administration. 

If  the  college  were  to  have  any  considerable  future 
the  endowment  must  be  largely  increased,  and  Presi- 
dent Carter  entered  at  once  upon  a  money-getting 
campaign.  For  this  sort  of  thing  he  had  as  little  liking 
as  Mark  Hopkins.  "  He  told  the  writer  .  .  .  that  after 
reaching  the  residence  of  the  first  man  to  whom  he 
applied  for  a  large  donation,  he  walked  round  the 
square  on  which  the  house  was  situated  three  times 
before  he  could  summon  courage  enough  to  enter 
it."  2  But  notwithstanding  his  distaste  for  the  busi- 
ness, he  secured  during  the  twenty  years  of  his  ad- 
ministration funds  to  the  amount  of  $980,000  —  a 
sum  which  raised  the  endowment  to  $i,ioo,ooo.3  Be- 

1  Inauguration  of  President  Carter,  25. 

2  Raymond,  Fiftieth  Anniversary  Report,  Class  of  '62,  41. 
8  Noble,  Class  of  '62,  31. 

244 


FRANKLIN  CARTER 


THE  NEW  WILLIAMS 

sides,  $600,000  were  spent  upon  the  campus.  The 
first  building  in  the  era  of  reconstruction  —  "a  mas- 
sive pile,  solid  and  substantial,  .  .  .  beautiful  and 
symmetrical  ...  a  genuine  product  of  our  hills " 
was  erected  by  one  "who  left  this  county  fifty  years 
ago  a  poor  boy'*  —  Edwin  Denison  Morgan,  Governor 
of  New  York,  and  United  States  Senator,  and  bears 
his  name.  Other  important  buildings,  six  in  num- 
ber, followed  —  Lasell  Gymnasium,  Hopkins  Hall, 
the  three  Thompson  Laboratories,  and  Jesup  Hall. 

While  funds  and  buildings  were  to  be  provided, 
President  Carter  realized  quite  as  clearly  as  his  pred- 
ecessor that  the  most  important  matter  in  the  fur- 
nishing of  a  college  was  the  faculty,  and  he  reinforced 
the  teaching  staff  with  four  new  professors  —  Samuel 
Fessenden  Clarke,  Richard  Austin  Rice,  Leverett 
Mears,  and  John  Haskell  Hewitt1  —  who  continued 
in  service  during  the  whole  of  his  administration  and 
were  important  factors  in  its  successes.  At  the  close 
of  it  the  number  of  instructors  had  doubled  and  the 
registration  of  students  showed  an  increase  of  sixty- 
eight  per  cent. 

Further,  there  was  the  question  of  the  curriculum. 
With  the  exception  of  William  and  Mary,  a  rigid,  in- 
elastic, "required"  system  prevailed  in  American 
colleges  from  colonial  times  to  the  close  of  the  first 
quarter  of  the  nineteenth  century.  Harvard  broke 
the  old  order  by  the  introduction  of  elective  studies 
in  1824.  This  new  policy  continued  for  twenty-five 
years,  when  it  encountered  the  hostility  of  President 

1  Professor  Hewitt,  who  was  in  Europe  when  elected,  did  not  take  up 
his  duties  until  the  autumn  of  1882. 

245 


WILLIAMS  COLLEGE 

Sparks,  and  a  reaction  set  in  so  strongly  that  the 
curriculum  of  1849-50  permitted  only  six  "hours" 
of  optional  work  during  the  four  years.  Leadership  in 
the  movement  for  educational  reform  then  fell  to 
Brown  University.  President  Wayland  published  in 
1850  his  "New  System,"  which  permitted  the  under- 
graduate to  "study  what  he  chooses,  all  he  chooses, 
and  nothing  but  what  he  chooses." 1  This  proposition 
struck  the  great  majority  of  educators  as  quite  too 
radical  and  the  reform  continued  somewhat  in  abey- 
ance until  Charles  William  Eliot,  elected  President  of 
Harvard  in  1869,  espoused  the  cause  and  finally  se- 
cured the  adoption  of  a  curriculum  in  which  English 
A  was  the  only  required  subject. 

At  Williams,  with  the  exception  of  the  eight  years, 
1864-72,  the  course  of  study  had  not  been  absolutely 
inelastic,  at  least  since  1822-23,  when  instruction  in 
Hebrew  was  given  to  "such  as  wish  it."  The  next 
year,  and  until  1828-29,  the  elective  studies  included 
Hebrew,  French,  mineralogy,  and  botany,  which  were 
offered  to  "select  classes."  In  1828-29  another  revi- 
sion took  place  and  then  Ty tier's  Elements  of  His- 
tory or  French  might  be  taken  "at  the  option  of  the 
student"  the  third  term  of  the  Sophomore  year  and 
Hebrew,  fluxions,  or  French  the  third  term  of  the  Jun- 
ior year.  The  Sophomore  elective  studies  continued 
until  1837-38,  when  they  were  abandoned.  For  those 
of  the  Junior  year  there  was  a  longer  lease  of  life, 
as  they  appear  in  every  catalogue  in  the  twenty-two 

1  Wayland,  Report  on  Changes  in  the  System  of  Collegiate  Education, 
1850. 
*  Bronson,  History  of  Brown  University,  258-67. 

246 


THE  NEW  WILLIAMS 

years  from  1828-29  to  1860-61,  and  with  only  one 
important  change  —  the  substitution  of  German  for 
Hebrew  in  1846-47.  During  the  two  years  1861  to 
1863  all  elective  work  was  shifted  to  the  first  and 
second  terms  of  the  Senior  year  and  restricted  to 
French  or  German.  Then  followed  a  reversion  to  the 
old  required  curriculum  —  a  reactionary  period  which 
came  to  an  end  in  1873-74,  when  mathematics,  Latin, 
or  Greek  were  offered  as  Junior  options  and  Greek  or 
Latin  might  be  substituted  for  analytical  geometry 
the  third  term  of  the  Sophomore  year. 

But  notwithstanding  these  possible  variations  the 
modern  Williams  curriculum  began  in  1881  when 
elective  courses  were  offered  to  Seniors  "from  the 
first  of  November  until  June  in  astronomy,  chemis- 
try, French,  German,  English  literature,  Latin,  Greek, 
and  calculus."  Subsequently  the  system  was  extended, 
until  at  the  close  of  the  administration  in  1901  the 
list  of  optional  studies  offered  to  Sophomores,  Juniors, 
and  Seniors  —  all  the  work  of  the  Freshman  class 
was  required  —  amounted  to  thirty-six  year  and 
twenty-one  half-year  courses. 

A  second  and  no  less  significant  modification  of  the 
curriculum  followed  presently.  "  I  should  be  willing/' 
President  Carter  remarked  in  his  Report  for  1882-83, 
"if  our  resources  allowed  it,  to  make  some  substitu- 
tion for  Greek  in  the  form  of  modern  languages  or 
sciences."  In  May,  1894,  the  faculty  struck  it  from 
the  list  of  subjects  required  for  admission.  Though 
the  immediate  consequences  of  the  step  seemed  un- 
important —  only  four  candidates  entered  college  the 
next  autumn  without  it  —  the  new  option  was  the 

247 


WILLIAMS  COLLEGE 

beginning  of  a  great  educational  change.  The  num- 
ber of  non-Greek  men,  relatively  negligible  in  1894, 
included  eighty-five  per  cent  of  the  Freshman  class  in 


A  third  innovation  —  the  adoption  of  the  honor 
system  in  examinations  —  was  brought  about  in  1896. 
On  the  whole  it  seems  to  have  worked  well  during  the 
twenty  years  it  has  been  in  force  and  there  appears 
to  be  little  inclination  toward  a  revival  of  the  old 
proctorial  system  of  supervision. 

One  long  and  troublesome  controversy  vexed  the 
administration  of  President  Carter.  The  petition  of 
"John  P.  Jordan  &  95  others  "  in  1837,  asking  per- 
mission to  tax  college  property,  was  not  the  last  enter- 
prise of  the  kind.  In  1896  the  assessors  of  Williams- 
town  withdrew  from  the  exempted  list  certain  college 
lands  and  dwelling-houses.  The  trustees  paid  the 
assessments  under  protest,  brought  suit  to  recover, 
and  lost  their  case.  A  general  alarm  in  academic  cir- 
cles followed  upon  this  decision.  If  taxes  could  be 
levied  on  college  property  in  Williamstown,  they  could 
also  be  levied  elsewhere.  Then  followed  a  period  of 
committee  hearings  and  legislative  bills.  Advocates 
of  taxation  dwelt  upon  the  "  burdens  "  which  the 

1  Anti-Greek  sentiment  is  not  exactly  a  recent  phenomenon  in  the 
educational  world.  Goldsmith's  Philosophic  Vagabond,  hearing  that 
there  were  not  two  men  in  the  university  at  Louvain  who  understood 
Greek,  resolved  to  travel  thither  "  and  live  by  teaching  it."  But  his 
hopes  proved  illusory.  "  '  You  see  me,  young  man,'  said  the  principal  to 
whom  he  offered  his  services,  'I  never  learned  Greek  and  don't  find  that 
I  have  ever  missed  it.  I  have  had  a  doctor's  cap  without  Greek;  I  have 
a  thousand  florins  a  year  without  Greek,  and  in  short,'  continued  he, 
'  as  I  don't  know  Greek  I  don't  believe  there  is  any  good  in  it.'  "  (Gold- 
smith's Works,  Bohn's  Edition,  I,  164. 

248 


THE  NEW  WILLIAMS 

presence  of  a  college  or  university  in  any  community 
imposed  upon  it,  —  burdens  which  the  State  ought  to 
share,  —  while  their  opponents  contended  that  the 
pecuniary  and  other  advantages  of  these  institutions 
to  the  towns  and  cities  in  which  they  happened  to 
be  located  greatly  exceeded  their  cost.  What  would 
Williamstown  have  been  without  the  college?  Prob- 
ably what  it  was  for  a  long  time  —  "a  scraggy  and 
struggling  little  hill  town."  1  When  the  corner-stone 
of  the  Thompson  Memorial  Chapel  was  laid  in  1902, 
Judge  James  Madison  Barker,  of  the  Board  of  Trus- 
tees, delivered  an  elaborate  address  in  which  he  re- 
viewed the  history  of  two  Berkshire  towns  —  Lanes- 
boro  and  Williamstown  —  both  incorporated  the 
same  year.  At  the  outset  the  prospects  of  the  former 
seemed  the  brighter  and  more  assured,  but  after  the 
lapse  of  a  hundred  and  thirty-seven  years,  it  still 
remains  an  obscure  hamlet,  while  the  name  of  the 
latter  is  known  far  and  wide  as  the  seat  of  Williams 
College. 

January  4,  1900,  the  Supreme  Court  of  Massachu- 
setts handed  down  a  decision  in  the  case  of  Har- 
vard University  against  the  City  of  Cambridge  which 
practically  reversed  the  Williamstown  decision.  The 
outcome  of  the  long  and  disquieting  agitation  was  a 
compromise,  by  the  terms  of  which  the  college  agreed 
to  make  some  annual  contribution  toward  the  ex- 
penses of  the  town  and  amicable  relations  continued 
until  1913,  when  the  assessors  of  the  fire  district 
levied  taxes  upon  college  property.  The  coup  did  not 
succeed,  as  the  Supreme  Court  held  that  they  had 
1  Boston  Transcript,  April  12,  1898. 
249 


WILLIAMS  COLLEGE 

exceeded  their  authority  and  the  interrupted  compro- 
mise went  into  effect  again. 

Another  episode  in  the  time  of  President  Carter 

—  the  commemoration  of  the  centennial  in  1892  — 
stands  out  in  pleasant  contrast  to  the  litigation  over 
the  question  of  taxation.   It  was,  as  by  all  the  canons 
of  fitness  it  should  have  been,  the  most  elaborate  and 
splendid  celebration  in  the  annals  of  the  college.  The 
buildings  were  effectively  decorated  with  bunting  — 
the  name  and  date  of  each  being  placed  above  the  main 
entrance  in  letters  of  gold   on  a  black  background 

—  and  at  night  the  campus  was  brilliantly  lighted. 
One  scheme  of  illumination,  dear  to  the  heart  of  the 
late  Horace  E.  Scudder,  —  great  beacon  fires  burning 
on  conspicuous  points  of    the   surrounding  moun- 
tains, —  was  reluctantly  abandoned  as  impracticable. 
The  list  of  delegates  and  invited  guests  comprised 
Governor  William  E.  Russell,  Lieutenant-Governor 
Roger  Wolcott,  Senator  Henry  Cabot  Lodge,  Bishop 
William  Lawrence,  representatives  of  seven  acade- 
mies, three  theological  seminaries,  eighteen  colleges  and 
universities.  Of  the  alumni  not  less  than  four  hun- 
dred and  fifty  were  present.   And  external  conditions 
could  hardly  have  been  more  fortunate  —  the  three 
days  having  been  seldom  surpassed  even  among  the 
Berkshires  in  glory  of  sunshine  and  color. 

The  formal  exercises  began  October  8  with  an  in- 
spiring sermon  in  the  Congregational  Church  by  the 
Rev.  Dr.  Henry  Hopkins  on  the  "Connection  of 
Religion  and  Education."  Sunday  afternoon  "The 
Relation  of  Christianity  to  Applied  Science"  was  con- 
sidered in  addresses  by  Charles  Cuthbert  Hall  (1872), 

250 


THE  NEW  WILLIAMS 

John  Bascom  (1849),  Henry  Martyn  Field  (1838), 
Charles  Augustus  Stoddard  (1854),  William  Mercer 
Grosvenor  (1855),  and  George  Alfred  Ford  (1872). 
While  all  these  addresses  were  worthy  of  the  occasion, 
no  one  of  them  was  more  characteristic  in  temper  of 
thought  and  quality  of  phrase  than  that  of  John 
Bascom.  He  lamented  the  absence  of  "the  divine 
afflatus"  in  college  life,  comparing  it  to  the  ground 
hemlock — "a  fresh,  clean,  wide-leaved  and  inviting 
shrub,  which  flattens  itself  out  over  the  earth,  and 
never  .  .  .  carries  a  crown  into  the  sky."  * 

Monday  morning  was  devoted  to  an  "  Educational 
Conference" — a  new  departure  in  the  programme 
of  college  centennial  anniversaries2  —  with  papers 
by  Henry  Pratt  Judson  (1870),  James  Caruthers 
Greenough  (1860),  Edward  Herrick  Griffin  (1862), 
Frank  Hun tington  Snow  (1862),  Charles  Gross  (1878), 
Truman  Henry  Safford  (Harvard,  1864),  and  Gran- 
ville  Stanley  Hall  (1867). 

On  Tuesday,  the  last  day  of  the  anniversary,  the 
exercises  opened  with  an  academic  procession  which 
formed  in  front  of  the  library  and  began  to  move  soon 
after  ten  o'clock.  This  procession  was  arranged  in  the 
following  order  —  the  chief  marshal  and  his  aides, 
the  chairman  of  the  committees  of  the  Trustees  and 
the  presiding  officer,  the  orator  and  chaplain,  the  in- 
vited guests,  the  Selectmen  of  Williamstown,  the 
Trustees,  the  faculty,  the  alumni,  and  the  under- 
graduates. The  line  of  march  lay  along  Main  Street 
past  the  gymnasium,  Morgan  Hall,  Jesup  Hall,  the 
science  buildings,  and  West  College,  to  the  park; 
1  Centennial  Anniversary,  74.  *  Ibid.,  140. 

251 


WILLIAMS  COLLEGE 

crossed  Main  Street  and  proceeded  up  the  north  side 
of  it  to  the  Congregational  Church,  halting  a  mo- 
ment at  the  President's  house  for  Dr.  Carter  and  the 
Governor  of  the  State. 

James  Hulme  Canfield  (1868)  delivered  the  centen- 
nial oration,  in  which  he  set  forth  "the  origin  and  the 
spirit  and  the  life  of  the  college."1  This  oration - 
direct  and  forcible  in  style,  fortunate  in  illustration 
and  historical  reference,  abounding  in  humorous 
turns  and  eloquent  periods  —  made  a  profound  im- 
pression upon  the  great  audience.  It  was  observed 
that  even  the  gentlemen  of  the  Governor's  staff, 
"veterans  of  many  a  long  and  monotonous  hour  of 
sermon  and  oration,"  listened  "with  smiling  faces  to 
the  very  end." 2 

A  luncheon,  which  concluded  the  programme,  suc- 
ceeded the  exercises  in  the  Congregational  Church. 
It  was  served  in  a  temporary  building  erected  on 
the  lawn  of  the  Sigma  Phi  Fraternity.  President 
Carter  presided  at  this  function,  introducing  with 
grace  and  felicity  the  long  list  of  speakers  —  Gov- 
ernor Russell,  Captain  Ephraim  Williams,  President 
Dwight  of  Yale,  Bishop  Lawrence  of  Massachu- 
setts, President  Tucker  of  Dartmouth,  President 
Eliot  of  Harvard,  Senator  Lodge,  President  Andrews 
of  Brown,  Mr.  Andrew  Carnegie,  President  Taylor 
of  Vassar,  President  Gilman  of  Johns  Hopkins,  and 
Professor  Briggs  of  Union  Theological  Seminary. 
Captain  Ephraim  Williams,  of  the  United  States 
Army,  grandnephew  and  namesake  of  the  founder, 

1  Centennial  Anniversary,  240. 

3  H.  W.  Mabie,  in  The  Outlook,  October  21,  1893. 

252 


THE  NEW  WILLIAMS 

sitting  in  full  uniform  among  the  distinguished  guests 
upon  the  platform,  imparted  to  the  occasion  an  effec- 
tive touch  of  historical  realism. 

In  1901  the  health  of  President  Carter  became  so 
much  impaired  that  he  felt  compelled  to  resign.  "I 
lay  the  work  down  with  a  sense  of  relief,"  he  wrote, 
"and  yet  sorry  that  I  could  not  have  had  the  power  to 
go  on  five  years  more."1  But  the  term  of  service, 
which  he  would  have  been  glad  to  extend,  was  long 
enough  to  permit  the  reorganization  of  the  institution 
and  the  readjustment  of  it  to  the  changed  times.  And 
the  "list  of  his  positions,  activities,  and  doctorates" 
during  this  time  shows  that  the  world  bestowed  its 
honors  upon  him  with  a  liberal  hand.  Nor  was  the 
number  of  his  publications  inconsiderable.  Profes- 
sor Raymond's  bibliography2  contains  forty-nine 
titles  of  books,  addresses,  magazine  and  newspaper 
articles.  And,  what  certainly  was  a  matter  of  no  less 
importance,  during  his  epoch-making  administration 
he  fully  maintained  in  the  classroom  the  greater  tradi- 
tions of  his  predecessors. 

ii 

President  Carter,  in  his  letter  of  resignation,  May  9, 
1901,  asked  to  be  relieved  from  duty  on  the  1st  of  the 
following  September.  "  I  have  fixed  upon  that  date," 
he  wrote,  "in  the  belief  that  the  intervening  period 
may  be  sufficient  time  for  the  selection  of  my  suc- 
cessor." It  soon  became  evident  that  this  interven- 
ing period  would  prove  too  short  for  the  task  in  hand, 

1  Noble,  Class  of  '62,  29. 

*  Raymond,  Fiftieth  Anniversary  Report,  Class  of  '62,  39. 


WILLIAMS  COLLEGE 

and  consequently  the  Trustees  appointed  an  Acting- 
President —  Professor  John  Haskell  Hewitt  —  who 
had  occupied  a  similar  position  at  Olivet  College  and 
Lake  Forest  University.  In  this  ad  interim  adminis- 
tration, which  continued  through  the  academic  year 
1901-02,  the  affairs  of  the  college  were  ably  and  suc- 
cessfully managed. 

January  17,  1902,  the  interval  of  indecision  came 
to  an  end  with  the  election  of  the  Rev.  Henry  Hop- 
kins, D.D.,  preacher  at  the  Centennial  Anniversary, 
successor  to  Dr.  Carter.  Graduating  in  the  class  of 
1858,  then  studying  theology  at  Union  Seminary,  he 
entered  the  army  as  chaplain  in  1861.  The  office  had 
not  then  been  created,  and  he  received  a  personal 
commission  from  President  Lincoln.  One  of  the  most 
important  Federal  hospitals  was  at  Alexandria,  and 
managers  of  the  Sanitary  Commission,  anxious  to 
secure  a  competent  chaplain  for  the  post,  asked 
Professor  Henry  B.  Smith,  of  Union  Theological 
Seminary,  New  York,  to  help  them.  "I  hope  I  have 
found  the  man,"  he  wrote.  "Young  H.,  son  of  Presi- 
dent Mark  Hopkins,  has  just  been  in  and  will  think 
of  it.  If  he  can  and  will  accept  it,  he  is  as  near  being 
just  the  man  as  needs  be."1  He  accepted  the  post  and 
remained  at  Alexandria  from  May  31,1 862,  to  May  25, 
i864.2  These  two  years  were  a  period  of  sympathetic, 
unstinted,  and  efficient  service,  by  no  means  limited 
to  the  ordinary  routine.  He  conducted,  for  instance, 
an  ambulance  corps  under  a  flag  of  truce  to  the  battle- 
fields of  Chantilly  and  Bull  Run,  and  brought  a  large 

1  Letters  of  a  Family  during  the  War,  1861-65,  I,  163. 

2  Mass.  Commandery,  Loyal  Legion,  Register,  1912. 

254 


JOHN  HASKELL  HEWITT 
I90I-I902 


THE  NEW  WILLIAMS 

number  of  wounded  soldiers  to  the  hospital.  "  We  cut 
their  clothes  from  them  .  .  .  stiff  with  their  own  blood 
and  Virginia  clay,"  he  wrote  a  friend,  "and  move 
them  inch  by  inch  into  their  rough  straw  beds.  Some 
of  these  fellows  I  love  like  brothers  and  stand  beside 
their  graves  for  other  reasons  than  that  it  is  an  official 
duty."  l  The  last  year  of  the  war  he  was  in  the  field 
as  chaplain  of  the  One  Hundred  and  Twentieth  New 
York  Infantry.  "I  met  your  President  for  the  first 
time,"  said  General  Horace  Porter,  speaking  at  the 
Williams  Commencement  of  1908,  "in  the  trenches 
before  Petersburg."  After  the  conclusion  of  the  war 
there  followed  thirty-six  years  of  successful  pastoral 
work  —  fourteen  of  them  at  Westfield  and  twenty- 
two  at  Kansas  City,  Missouri. 

The  new  President,  then  sixty-four  years  old  and 
without  experience  in  academical  affairs,  naturally 
hesitated  somewhat  about  entering  upon  the  untried 
vocation.  His  father,  Mark  Hopkins,  devoted  him- 
self primarily  to  the  business  of  teaching.  For  him 
that  was  the  chief,  the  most  important,  factor  in  the 
presidency.  But  the  scope  and  ideals  of  the  office  had 
changed  —  were  becoming  essentially  executive  — 
and  the  successful  conduct  of  important  parishes 
might  be  a  not  ineffective  preparation  for  it.  What- 
ever hesitations  may  have  disturbed  him  while  the 
question  was  under  advisement,  the  enthusiastic 
reception  he  received  in  Williamstown  inauguration 
dayr  Tuesday,  June  24,  1902,  ought  to  have  quite 
reassured  him.  The  registration  of  alumni  surpassed 
that  of  any  previous  Commencement  and  delegates 
1  Letters  of  a  Family  during  the  War,  1861-65,  n»  475- 
255 


WILLIAMS  COLLEGE 

from  twenty- three  educational  institutions  were  pres- 
ent. The  addresses  of  welcome  reflected  the  universal 
sentiment  of  friendliness  and  expectation  —  Judge 
James  Madison  Barker  speaking  for  the  Trustees, 
Acting-President  Hewitt  for  the  faculty,  George 
Frederick  Kurd  for  the  undergraduates,  and  Henry 
Loomis  Nelson  for  the  alumni.  The  inaugural  dis- 
course —  a  stirring  appeal  for  scholarship  and  service 
—  "was  greeted  with  .  .  .  applause  at  its  opening  and 
throughout  its  delivery."  1 

Though  the  new  administration  had  a  brief  day  its 
achievements  were  of  large  importance.  First  there 
was  a  substantial  increase  in  the  salaries  of  professors.2 
Then  came  a  scheme  of  retirements  and  pensions  — 
the  retirements  possible  at  the  age  of  sixty-five,  com- 
pulsory three  years  later,  and  the  pensions  not  to 
exceed  fifteen  hundred  dollars.3  A  discussion  and  re- 
vision of  the  curriculum  took  place  in  1902-03  and 
resulted  in  the  adoption  of  a  moderate  group  system. 
Further  an  active  and  persistent  propaganda  for 
small  classroom  divisions  resulted  in  a  growth  of  the 
teaching  staff,  which  broke  all  the  records  —  a  growth 
from  twenty-six  at  the  beginning  of  the  period  1902- 
08  to  forty-nine  at  the  close  of  it.  The  relative  increase 
of  students  fell  much  below  this  ratio —  there  were 
three  hundred  and  eighty-one  in  1902  and  four  hun- 
dred and  seventy  in  1908. 

Great  activity  also  prevailed  upon  the  campus. 

1  Springfield  Republican,  June  25,  1902. 

2  The  maximum  salaries  during  the  period  1912-13  were — for  pro- 
fessors, $3000;  for  assistant  professors,  $2000;  for  instructors,  $1500. 
(Garfield,  Report,  1913,  Appendix  B.) 

8  Williams  pays  its  pensions  irrespective  of  the  Carnegie  allowances. 

256 


HENRY  HOPKINS 
1902-1908 


THE  NEW  WILLIAMS 

Goodrich  Hall  and  Jackson  Hall,  the  one  being  unsafe 
and  the  other  obsolete,  were  pulled  down.  Griffin 
Hall  and  the  chapel  of  1859,  —  the  latter  renamed 
Goodrich  Hall,  —  having  outlived  their  original  uses, 
became  recitation  and  seminar  buildings,  and  South 
College,  enlarged  and  modernized,  exchanged  its  first 
name  for  that  of  Fayerweather  Hall. 

To  this  time  also  belong  the  central  heating  plant, 
Berkshire  Hall,  Currier  Hall,  the  rebuilt  Clark  Hall, 
and  considerable  purchases  of  real  estate.  But  from 
an  architectural  point  of  view  the  most  important 
addition  to  the  campus  was  the  chapel,  erected  by 
Mrs.  Frederick  Ferris  Thompson,  "to  the  glory  of 
God"  and  in  memory  of  her  late  husband.  The  dedi- 
cation of  this  beautiful  edifice  with  its  tower,  which 
adds  a  new  glory  to  the  landscape,  took  place  June  21, 
1905,  and  representatives  of  six  religious  denomina- 
tions participated  in  the  elaborate  and  impressive 
exercises. 

When  Dr.  Hopkins  accepted  the  presidency  he 
seems  to  have  set  the  term  of  six  years,  at  the  conclu- 
sion of  which  he  would  have  reached  the  age  of  seventy, 
as  the  period  of  his  service.  On  the  completion  of  this 
period  he  resigned,  and  a  college  official  has  seldom 
retired  amid  more  general  or  sincere  demonstrations 
of  affection.  Though  his  health  had  suffered  under  the 
unaccustomed  strain,  it  was  thought  that  a  sea  voyage 
and  a  year  of  travel  in  Europe  might  restore  it.  But 
hopes  were  delusive  and  he  died  August  18,  1908,  at 
Rotterdam,  Holland.  His  remains  were  brought  to 
Williamstown  and  funeral  services  held  September  20 
in  the  Thompson  Memorial  Chapel.  Dean  Edward  H. 

257 


WILLIAMS  COLLEGE 

Griffin,  of  Johns  Hopkins  University,  and  Professor 
John  E.  Russell,  of  the  college,  delivered  appreciative 
and  felicitous  addresses  —  the  former  dwelling  upon 
the  happy  conditions  in  which  President  Hopkins 
had  been  placed  so  that  his  life  was  rounded  out  into 
a  completeness  rarely  attained;  the  latter  upon  the 
openness  and  kindliness  of  his  nature,  the  nobility  of 
his  ideals,  and  the  sureness  of  his  instinct  in  appraising 
educational  values. 

ill 

Harry  Augustus  Garfield  was  elected  successor  to 
Henry  Hopkins  June  25,  1907,  —  a  year  before  the 
administration  of  the  latter  came  to  an  end.  The  new 
President,  eldest  son  of  the  late  James  Abram  Gar- 
field,  a  graduate  of  Williams  in  the  class  of  1885,  after 
professional  studies  in  New  York,  London,  and 
Oxford,  entered  upon  the  practice  of  law  at  Cleve- 
land, Ohio,  which  continued  until  1903  when  he 
accepted  a  call  to  the  chair  of  Politics  in  Princeton 
University. 

The  induction  took  place  October  7,  1908  —  the 
one  hundred  and  fifteenth  anniversary  of  the  found- 
ing of  the  college.  On  this  occasion  the  attendance  of 
invited  guests  and  representatives  of  educational 
institutions  exceeded  that  at  any  previous  academic 
function  in  Williamstown.  The  events  of  the  day 
began  with  prayers  in  Thompson  Memorial  Chapel, 
conducted  by  the  Rev.  Dr.  Daniel  Merriman,  of 
Boston,  and  the  Rev.  Dr.  Harry  P.  Dewey,  of  Minne- 
apolis, both  members  of  the  Board  of  Trustees.  Then 
followed  the  exercises  of  the  inauguration  at  the  Con- 

258 


THE  NEW  WILLIAMS 

gregational  Church  —  the  invocation  by  ex-President 
Carter;  the  induction  by  the  Rev.  William  Wisner 
Adams,  D.D.,  Chairman  of  the  Board  of  Trustees; 
the  acceptance  by  the  President  of  the  college;  and 
congratulatory  addresses  —  by  President  Woodrow 
Wilson;  the  Rev.  John  Sheridan  Zelie  (1887);  Pro- 
fessor John  Haskell  Hewitt,  and  Ernest  Hosmer 
Wood  (1909). 

In  his  inaugural  address  President  Garfield  dis- 
cussed with  admirable  clearness  and  point  the  ques- 
tion, "What  is  the  chief  end  of  the  American  college?  " 
It  must  be  an  object,  he  urged,  which  does  injustice 
neither  to  the  past  nor  to  the  present;  that  appeals 
to  students  of  every  type  and  inspires  them  with  new 
and  higher  conceptions  of  life.  "Such  an  object," 
he  continued,  "is  expressed  by  the  word  citizenship. 
America's  great  need  is  that  the  men  and  women  of 
the  United  States  comprehend  all  that  citizenship 
imports.  .  .  .  Hence  I  venture  to  assert  that  the  chief 
end  of  the  American  college  is  to  train  citizens  for 
citizenship."  l 

After  the  exercises  of  induction  came  the  luncheon 
in  Lasell  Gymnasium,  with  Hamilton  Wright  Mabie 
as  presiding  officer  and  a  distinguished  array  of  speak- 
ers —  President  Eliot,  of  Harvard  University;  Presi- 
dent Alderman,  of  the  University  of  Virginia;  Presi- 
dent Van  Hise,  of  the  University  of  Wisconsin; 
Ambassador  Bryce,  and  Curtis  Guild,  Governor  of 
Massachusetts.  And  to  all  the  other  happy  fortunes 
of  the  occasion  were  added  the  charms  of  beautiful 
weather.  "Over  the  rare  day  arched  a  Berkshire  sky 
1  Induction  of  President  Garfield,  39,  40. 
259 


WILLIAMS  COLLEGE 

of  unflecked  blue  and  every  augury  was  propitious  for 
the  new  departure  at  Williams."  l 

To  attempt  any  detailed  survey  of  the  administra- 
tion begun  under  such  favorable  conditions  does  not 
fall  within  the  scope  of  the  present  volume.  It  is  only 
necessary  to  say  that  the  subsequent  progress  of  the 
institution  has  not  discredited  the  happy  promise  of 
this  new  departure.  The  registration  of  students  rose 
from  487  in  1908-09  to  552  in  1915-16.  Although  so 
lately  as  1903-04  the  curriculum  had  been  diligently 
revised,  in  1908-10  it  was  pronounced  obsolete  and 
replaced  by  a  radical  group  system  with  an  elaborate 
scheme  of  prerequisites.  A  Student  Council,  estab- 
lished in  1914,  took  over  the  management  of  extra- 
curriculum  affairs  —  a  decided  step  toward  under- 
graduate self-government.  Nor  has  the  campus,  now 
containing  not  less  than  two  hundred  and  forty  acres, 
been  neglected.  Among  recent  improvements  Smed- 
ley  Terrace,  Stetson  Road,  the  Thompson  Infirmary, 
Williams  Hall,  and  Grace  Hall  may  be  mentioned. 
To  complete  the  immediate  programme  of  reconstruc- 
tion only  one  other  building  —  an  adequate  library  — 
seems  to  be  needed.  That  building,  when  provided, 
will  be  the  fourth  stage  in  its  history.  During  the 
first  stage,  which  lasted  from  1793  to  1828,  it  was  a 
West  College  room,  so  small  that  one  standing  in  the 
centre  of  it  could  reach  any  book  on  the  shelves.2 
Then  it  was  removed  to  Griffin  Hall,  and  the  second 
makeshift  continued  until  1846,  when  Amos  Lawrence 
built  the  quaint,  octagonal  hall  which  bears  his  name 

1  Springfield  Republican,  October  8,  1908. 

2  Durfee,  Williams  College,  345. 

260 


HARRY  AUGUSTUS  GARFIELD 


THE  NEW  WILLIAMS 

and  for  seventy  years  has  been  the  college  library. 
Though  twice  enlarged,  —  the  original  capacity  was 
thirty-four  thousand  volumes,  —  it  does  not  afford 
adequate  facilities  for  the  uses  of  a  collection  of  books 
which  in  1916  numbered  83,909. 

March  31,  1916,  the  real  estate  and  equipment  of 
the  college  were  estimated  by  the  Treasurer  at  a  valu- 
ation of  $1,837,193.51,  and  the  securities  and  funds 
amounted  to  $2,185,206.65,  making  the  total  assets 
$4,022,400.16.  The  income  for  the  year  1915-16,  in- 
cluding that  of  the  Corporation  and  of  special  funds 
and  donations  for  current  expenses,  was  $236,217.46. 

Since  the  academic  year  1905-06  the  expenses  of 
administration  have  exceeded  the  income  —  the 
deficits  ranging  from  $15,534.72  to  $37,302.85  annu- 
ally. To  provide  for  these  deficits,  to  increase  the 
salaries  of  the  teaching  staff,  and  to  establish  such 
new  professorships  as  may  be  advisable,  the  Trustees 
authorized,  in  May,  1913,  the  raising  of  two  million 
dollars.  July  I,  1916,  the  subscriptions  and  legacies 
applicable  to  the  proposed  fund  amounted  to  approxi- 
mately one  half  of  that  sum. 

The  bicentenary  of  the  birth  of  Ephraim  Williams 
occurred  March  7,  1915.  In  Williamstown  there  were 
two  celebrations  of  the  event,  the  first,  February 
20,  by  the  local  alumni  association  and  the  other, 
March  6  by  the  college.  Professor  John  Haskell 
Hewitt  was  the  principal  speaker  before  the  associa- 
tion and  ex-President  Carter  before  the  college.  We 
find  in  their  admirable  addresses  some  revision  of 
earlier  interpretations  of  the  character  and  career  of 
the  founder.  For  example,  Professor  Hewitt  took 

261 


WILLIAMS  COLLEGE 

issue  with  the  dictum  of  the  centennial  orator  in  1893 
that  he  was  nothing  more  than  "a  fair  exponent  of 
the  average  life  of  his  day,"  and  made  it  pretty  clear 
that  the  orator  had  "  failed  ...  to  portray  the  real 
Ephraim  Williams. ' ' 1  Ex-President  Carter  was  in  sym- 
pathy with  the  protest,  and  happily  characterized  him 
as  "a  true  gentleman,  a  lover  of  humanity,  a  patriot 
soldier,  and  an  early  martyr  to  human  liberty."  2 

IV 

Many  of  the  graduates,  who  served  on  the  Board 
of  Trustees,  and  have  died  since  the  inauguration  of 
President  Carter  in  1881,  were  well-known  men: 
Henry  Lyman  Sabin  (1821),  for  more  than  fifty  years 
a  prominent  physician  in  Williamstown  and  the 
Northern  Berkshires;  James  Denison  Colt  (1838), 
Justice  of  the  Supreme  Court  of  Massachusetts;  Henry 
Martyn  Hoyt  (1849),  Brevet  Brigadier-General  of 
United  States  Volunteers  and  Governor  of  Pennsyl- 
vania; Francis  Henshaw  Dewey  (1840),  Justice  of  the 
Superior  Court  of  Massachusetts;  Robert  Russell 
Booth  (1849),  Director  of  Union  and  of  Princeton 
Theological  Seminaries,  Moderator  of  the  Presby- 
terian General  Assembly;  William  Wisner  Adams 
(J855),  pastor  of  the  First  Congregational  Church  in 
Fall  River,  a  preacher  notable  for  his  prayers  as  well 
as  for  his  sermons;  Horace  Elisha  Scudder  (1858), 
man  of  letters,  editor  of  the  "Atlantic  Monthly," 
author  of  the  "Life  of  James  Russell  Lowell,"  and 

1  Alumni  Review,  April  15,  1915,  n. 

*  Address  at  the  Two  Hundredth  Anniversary  of  the  Birth  of  Ephraim 
Williams,  6. 

262 


THE  NEW  WILLIAMS 

many  other  books;  James  Madison  Barker  (1860), 
Associate  Justice  of  the  Supreme  Court  of  Massachu- 
setts, author  of  a  sketch  of  Paul  Ansel  Chadbourne, 
in  the  "  Proceedings"  of  the  Massachusetts  Historical 
Society;  William  Rumsey  (1861),  Associate  Justice  of 
the  Supreme  Court  of  New  York,  writer  of  books  on 
the  Practice  and  the  Codification  of  Law;  Joseph 
Edward  Simmons (1862),  President  of  the  Chamber 
of  Commerce  and  of  the  Board  of  Education  in  New 
York;  Daniel  Merriman  (1863),  pastor  of  Broad- 
way Church,  Norwich,  Connecticut,  and  of  Central 
Church,  Worcester,  an  efficient  administrator  and 
executive,  a  vigorous,  scholarly  preacher,  singularly 
happy  in  the  liturgies  of  pulpit  service;  James  Robert 
Dunbar  (1871),  Associate  Justice  of  the  Superior 
Court  of  Massachusetts  from  1888  to  1898,  a  man 
whom  "nature  fitted  ...  for  a  judge'*;  Charles  Cuth- 
bert  Hall  (1872),  President  of  Union  Theological 
Seminary,  Barrows  lecturer  to  India  and  the  Far 
East,  preacher  at  the  dedication  of  the  Thompson 
Memorial  Chapel,  a  religious  leader  whose  earnest, 
comprehending  words  touched  the  lives  of  young 
men  to  finer  issues  in  many  colleges  and  universities. 
The  name  of  another  Trustee,  Frederick  Ferris 
Thompson,  —  a  man  of  sunny  disposition,  quaint  and 
original  in  speech,  easily  winning  confidence,  admira- 
tion, and  affection,  — who  died  in  1899,  will  always 
be  associated  with  the  college.  Five  of  the  twenty- 
three  buildings  on  the  campus  bear  his  name.  He 
wrote  a  half -humorous  account  of  himself  for  the 
fortieth  anniversary  of  his  class:  "  You  want  to  know 
something  about  me.  .  .  .  Story?  Lord  bless  you,  I  Ve 

263 


WILLIAMS  COLLEGE 

none  to  tell.1  I  was  only  a  quodam  member  of  '56,  of 
two  years'  presence  in  college  and  a  thorn  in  the  fac- 
ulty of  that  day.  ...  I  served  my  time  in  the  war 
without  any  distinction.  I  was  captain  in  the  37th 
New  York  volunteers  which  never  saw  a  battle.  .  .  . 
I  made  some  money  in  my  banking  business  and 
promptly  gave  it  away  to  the  college  to  which  I  owe 
the  best  years  of  my  life."  If  he  had  told  his  "story," 
a  certain  incident,  related  in  Caroline  Richards' 
charming  "Diary  of  a  School  Girl,"  should  certainly 
have  been  included  in  it:  — 

"April  26  [1865].  Mr.  Fred.  Thompson  went  down 
to  New  York  last  Saturday  and  while  stopping  for  a 
few  minutes  at  St.  Johnsville,  he  heard  a  man  crow- 
ing over  the  death  of  the  President.  Mr.  Thompson 
marched  up  to  him,  collared  him,  and  landed  him 
nicely  in  the  gutter.  The  bystanders  were  delighted 
and  carried  the  champion  to  the  platform  and  called 
for  a  speech,  which  was  given.  Quite  a  little  episode. 
Every  one  who  hears  the  story  says:  Three  cheers  for 
F.  F.  Thompson." 

Two  "officers  of  administration"  passed  away  in 
this  period.  Charles  Henry  Burr  (1868),  after  suc- 
cessful pastorates  in  New  York  and  elsewhere,  ac- 
cepted the  position  of  librarian  in  1888  and  held  it 
until  his  death,  November  28,  1910.  Ex-President 
Carter  delivered  a  pathetic  address  at  his  funeral.  It 
was  a  lamentation  over  brilliant  prospects  blighted 
by  illness  that  shattered  "his  superb  physical  health" 
and  filled  his  later  years  with  conflict  and  suffering.2 

1  Class  of  1856,  33. 

2  Carter,  Williams  Alumni  Review,  December,  1910,  p.  26. 

264 


THE  NEW  WILLIAMS 

Eben  Burt  Parsons  (1859),  pastor  of  the  Presby- 
terian Church  at  Baldwinsville,  New  York,  for 
twenty-two  years,  became  secretary  of  the  faculty 
and  Registrar  of  the  college  in  1888.  He  had  been 
invited  to  Williamstown  long  before  and  declined  the 
call.  "Here  is  the  sort  of  thing  we  used  to  call  an 
1 M.  H.,'"  he  once  remarked  to  the  present  writer  and 
handed  him  an  old,  yellowed  letter.  The  "M.  H." 
proved  to  be  the  initials  of  Mark  Hopkins  and  the 
letter  one  which  he  wrote  to  Dr.  Parsons  in  the  sixties 
of  the  last  century  offering  him  the  chair  of  Mathe- 
matics. He  discharged  the  exacting  duties  of  his  posi- 
tion with  unflagging  patience,  courtesy,  and  industry. 
As  necrologist  from  1882  to  1909  he  prepared  obituary 
notices  of  more  than  eight  hundred  graduates.  Shat- 
tered in  health,  he  might  often  be  seen  in  his  last  days 
-  he  died  January  24,  1913  —  wandering  half  bewil- 
dered about  the  familiar  campus  as  if  in  a  world  not 
realized. 

The  most  conspicuous  name  in  the  death-roll  of 
members  of  the  faculty  was  that  of  Mark  Hopkins, 
whose  long  life  of  eighty-five  years  came  to  a  close 
June  17,  1887.  Funeral  services,  attended  by  a  large 
number  of  alumni  and  by  representatives  of  many 
institutions,  religious  and  educational,  were  held  in 
the  Congregational  Church  at  Williamstown,  June  21. 
President  Carter  delivered  an  appreciative  and  elo- 
quent address  which  forms  the  concluding  chapter  of 
his  "Mark  Hopkins"  published  in  1892. 

A  year  later,  at  the  Commencement  of  1888,  David 
Dudley  Field  pronounced  an  oration  before  the  alumni 
upon  his  boyhood  and  lifelong  friend,  the  late  Presi- 

265 


WILLIAMS  COLLEGE 

dent.  He  was  then  in  his  eighty-fourth  year,  but  stood 
upon  the  platform  with  the  poise  and  confidence  of 
middle  age  —  a  magnificent  incarnation  of  physical 
and  intellectual  vigor  —  and  delivered,  without  man- 
uscript, never  hesitating  for  a  word,  an  impressive 
address.  Mark  Hopkins,  he  said,  "was  to  me  a 
brother.  We  started  on  the  voyage  of  Life  together. 
.  .  .  Now  from  my  bark  still  lingering  on  the  sea,  I 
wave  my  parting  salutation  to  him  safely  landed  on 
the  shore."1 

In  this  time  two  former  members  of  the  faculty 
passed  away  —  Addison  Ballard  (1842)  and  Lewellyn 
Pratt  (1852).  Both  of  them  retired  from  service  many 
years  ago  and  that  of  Addison  Ballard  was  brief  — 
tutor,  1843-44,  and  Professor  of  Rhetoric,  1854-55. 
His  academic  career,  however,  in  other  institutions  — 
in  Ohio  University,  Marietta  College,  Lafayette  Col- 
lege, and  New  York  University  —  extended  over  a 
period  of  thirty-eight  years.  He  was  a  crisp,  vigorous, 
suggestive  writer.  Dying  December  2,  1914,  in  the 
ninety-third  year  of  his  age,  he  retained  to  the  last  a 
surprising  physical  and  intellectual  vigor. 

Lewellyn  Pratt  had  a  longer  and  more  recent 
official  connection  with  the  college,  since  he  was 
Professor  of  Rhetoric  from  1876  to  1881  and  Trustee 
from  1884  to  1889.  Then  for  thirteen  years  he  taught 
in  other  institutions.  But  the  greater  part  of  his 
long  workday —  he  died  in  1913  at  the  age  of  eighty- 
one  —  was  spent  in  the  pastorate.  A  man  of  striking 
personality,  ready  to  take  any  amount  of  trouble  for 

1  D.  D.  Field,  Speeches,  Arguments,  and  Miscellaneous  Papers,  in, 
397.  398. 

266 


THE  NEW  WILLIAMS 

others,  —  refined,  cultured,  undogmatic,  with  rare 
gifts  of  speech,  —  it  is  not  strange  that  he  should  win 
the  hearts  alike  of  students  and  parishioners. 

Charles  Franklin  Gilson  (1853),  Professor  of  Mod- 
ern Languages,  came  to  the  end  a  few  weeks  before 
the  inauguration  of  President  Carter.  He  fought 
chronic  invalidism  heroically  for  years,  holding  with 
Stevenson  that  "it  is  better  to  live  and  be  done  with 
it  than  to  die  daily  in  the  sick-room."  1  At  times  al- 
most helpless,  students  carried  him  to  the  recitation 
room  in  their  arms.  Once  there  and  seated  in  his  chair 
all  signs  of  weakness  disappeared.  The  charm  of  his 
personality,  the  vigor  of  his  intellectual  processes, 
and  the  high  standards  of  scholarship  he  insisted 
upon,  compelled  admiration  as  well  as  affection.  Nor 
did  his  associates  fall  behind  the  young  men  in  appre- 
ciation. "  The  world  is  sensibly  less  habitable  for  me," 
wrote  John  Bascom,  "  now  that  he  has  gone  from  it."  2 

Cyrus  Morris  Dodd  (1855),  one  of  the  truest,  most 
genuine,  and  lovable  of  old-fashioned  men,  died  in 
1897.  He  taught  Williams  Freshmen  and  Sophomores 
mathematics  for  twenty-eight  years  and  did  his  work 
well,  though  it  was  hardly  congenial.  The  real  enthu- 
siasm of  his  life  lay  in  the  field  of  literature  and 
aesthetics.  Fine  editions  of  the  old  poets,  English  and 
classical,  were  a  joy  to  him.  Every  year  he  re-read 
Scott's  novels  and  the  poetry  of  his  friend  William 
Cullen  Bryant.  And  another  trait  quite  as  strong  as 
the  love  of  good  literature  was  an  enthusiasm  for  the 
scenery  of  Northern  Berkshire,  no  less  intense  and 

1  Stevenson,  Travels  and  Essays,  Scribner's  Edition,  xm,  105. 

2  Bascom,  Things  Learned  by  Living,  129. 

267 


WILLIAMS  COLLEGE 

unwearied  than  George  Sorrow's  for  that  of  East 
Anglia. 

James  Ingraham  Peck  (1887),  Assistant  Professor 
of  Biology,  who  died  in  the  autumn  of  1898,  was  a 
young  man  of  great  promise.  An  associate,  writing  to 
a  friend  shortly  after  his  funeral,  said:  "He  loved  his 
work  and  had  unusual  ability  to  interest  others  in  it. 
...  I  met  him  on  the  street  a  few  days  before  the  end 
came  and  talked  with  him  about  his  health.  He  said 
that  he  felt  spent;  .  .  .  that  his  heart  had  gone  back 
on  him  in  an  alarming  fashion.  I  encouraged  him  as 
well  as  I  could,  but  he  looked  badly."1 

Luther  Dana  Woodbridge  (1872)  belonged  to  an 
ancient  Massachusetts  family  —  one  ancestor  being 
a  graduate  in  the  first  class  at  Harvard  and  another 
an  early  trustee  of  Yale.  After  a  period  of  service  as 
instructor  in  his  Alma  Mater  and  in  Robert  College, 
followed  by  medical  studies  in  New  York,  London, 
and  Vienna,  he  accepted  the  professorship  of  Anat- 
omy and  Physiology  at  Williams  and  entered  upon 
his  duties  in  1884.  A  man  of  immense  vitality,  a  suc- 
cessful physician,  a  thorough  and  enthusiastic  teacher, 
his  sudden  death  in  1899  left  a  great  void  in  the  com- 
munity.2 

Truman  Henry  Safford,  born  in  Royal  ton,  Ver- 
mont, a  graduate  of  Harvard  (1854),  successor  of 
Albert  Hopkins  as  Professor  of  Astronomy  at  Wil- 
liams in  1876,  belonged  to  the  class  of  mathematical 
prodigies  sometimes  called  "lightning  calculators." 
At  the  age  of  six  he  could  solve  mentally  the  problem 

1  MS.  letter,  December  4,  1898. 

2  Carter,  In  Memoriam  Luther  Dana  Woodbridge,  14. 

268 


THE  NEW  WILLIAMS 

—  How  many  barleycorns  are  there  in  1040  rods? 
Before  reaching  his  tenth  year  he  had  studied  algebra, 
geometry,  trigonometry,  and  astronomy,  and  pub- 
lished an  almanac  with  original  computations.1 

The  extraordinary  calculating  powers  of  another 
Vermonter,  Zerah  Colburn,  diminished  as  he  grew 
older.  No  such  decline  appears  in  the  case  of  Professor 
Safford.  A  classroom  incident  at  Williams  in  1891, 
when  he  was  in  his  fifty-sixth  year,  would  seem  to 
make  that  point  plain.  "One  of  the  students  gave 
him  this  problem  during  a  recitation  —  '  Supposing  I 
was  born  at  a  certain  hour,  minute,  and  second  of  a 
certain  day,  how  old  would  I  now  be  in  seconds?' 
The  professor  put  his  head  slightly  on  one  side  in  a 
characteristic  way,  walked  up  and  down  before  the 
blackboard  once  or  twice,  and  then  gave  the  an- 
swer. 'No,'  said  the  student;  'that  is  not  correct, 
for  I  have  worked  out  the  problem  and  the  answer 
is  different.'  '  What  was  your  answer? '  On  being  told, 
he  resumed  his  walk  before  the  blackboard  and  pres- 
ently exclaimed,  'Oh,  you  forgot  the  leap  years.'"2 

Professor  Safford  must  be  included  in  the  small 
class  of  lightning  calculators  who,  like  Ampere,  Gauss, 
and  the  Bidders,  were  also  men  of  great  intellectual 
ability.  Many  of  these  prodigies  appear  to  have  been 
"reckoning  machines"  and  nothing  more.  Professor 
Philip  Fox,  in  an  address  at  the  celebration  of  the 
semi-centennial  anniversary  of  the  Chicago  Astro- 
nomical Society,  said  that  in  an  effort  to  make  a  bibli- 
ography of  Professor  Safford's  work  he  had  found  "a 

1  Bruce,  McClure's  Magazine,  September,  1912,  p.  592.] 
1  Professor  Milham,  MS.  letter. 

269 


WILLIAMS  COLLEGE 

vast  number  of  papers,  many  of  general  interest,  but 
most  of  them  concerned  with  star  positions."1  At 
Williamstown  his  best-known  publications  were 
"Mathematical  Teaching  and  its  Modern  Methods," 
a  discourse  on  "The  development  of  Astronomy  in 
the  United  States,"  and  a  "  Catalogue  of  North  Polar 
Stars." 

In  the  classroom  Professor  Safford's  mental  proc- 
esses were  so  rapid  that  the  average  student  found  it 
difficult  to  follow  them.  Though  fairly  patient  with 
dull  and  stupid  men,  he  whimsically  lamented  at 
times  the  scarcity  of  "fool-killers."  It  must  be  ad- 
mitted, however,  in  justice  to  the  lower  half  of  his 
classes,  that  with  all  his  dazzling  intellectual  equip- 
ment he  had  little  aptitude  for  oral  exposition.  In 
November,  1912,  it  was  "the  happy  privilege"  of  the 
Chicago  Astronomical  Society  to  dedicate  in  his  honor 
a  bronze  tablet.2 

Orlando  Marcellus  Fernald,  Lawrence  Professor  of 
Greek,  died  in  1902.  A  graduate  of  Harvard,  he  was 
called  from  the  Springfield  High  School  to  Williams- 
town  in  1872,  and  thirty  successive  classes  had  the 
drill  and  discipline  of  his  keen,  thorough,  insistent, 
sham-hating  tuition.  Nor  was  his  work  less  ungrudg- 
ing or  valuable  in  matters  of  administration,  and  his 
service  did  not  fail  to  receive  emphatic  official  recog- 
nition. In  1901  the  Trustees  conferred  upon  him  the 
degree  of  LL.D. — an  honor  which  with  a  single  ex- 
ception had  never  before  been  conferred  upon  a  mem- 
ber of  the  teaching  staff  during  the  period  of  active 
service. 

1  Popular  Astronomy,  October,  1913.  *  Ibid. 

270 


THE  NEW  WILLIAMS 

Henry  Loomis  Nelson  (1868)  entered  upon  his  pro- 
fessorial career  of  six  years  in  1902  at  the  age  of 
fifty-six.  His  success  in  this  belated  vocation  affords 
a  striking  illustration  of  the  fact  that  for  undergradu- 
ate work  the  personality  of  the  instructor  may  be  of 
more  importance  than  scholastic  degrees.  It  is  to  be 
noted,  however,  that  as  Professor  Nelson's  depart- 
ment was  Government,  his  long  connection  with  the 
newspaper  press  in  Boston,  New  York,  and  Washing- 
ton afforded  a  sort  of  graduate  course  in  preparation 
for  his  new  career.  A  large,  breezy,  intellectual  sort  of 
man,  positive  if  not  aggressive  in  his  opinions,  abun- 
dantly qualified  for  admission  to  Dr.  Johnson's  com- 
munity of  good  haters,  skilful  in  the  use  of  material 
which  a  wide  acquaintance  with  the  world  had  given 
him,  his  advent  in  Williamstown  was  a  very  consid- 
erable circumstance. 

Arthur  Latham  Perry,  one  of  the  most  popular  of 
Williams  professors,  retired  in  1891.  His  final  serv- 
ice was  the  conduct  of  prayers  at  the  chapel  the  last 
Saturday  morning  of  the  second  semester.  "  I  will 
read  for  our  Scripture  lesson,"  he  said,  "the  passage 
which  I  selected  when  thirty-eight  years  ago  I  con- 
ducted these  exercises  for  the  first  time." 

Though  Professor  Perry  taught  German  from  1854 
to  1868,  his  principal  work  lay  in  the  field  of  history 
and  political  economy.  A  sharp  contrast  of  methods 
characterized  his  handling  of  these  subjects.  Follow- 
ing a  custom  then  quite  general  among  New  England 
colleges,  he  made  the  recitation  in  history  practically 
a  memoriter  exercise.  Calling  up  some  member  of  the 
class  he  asked  him  to  begin  a  summary  of  the  pages 

271 


WILLIAMS  COLLEGE 

assigned  in  the  textbook  for  the  lesson.  When  he  had 
finished,  a  second  student  was  expected  to  take  up  the 
narrative,  and  so  on  to  the  end  —  the  recitation  pro- 
ceeding in  an  automatic  fashion.1  This  scheme  cer- 
tainly meant  serious  work  for  conscientious  students. 
So  much  at  least  may  be  said  in  its  favor.  It  is  also 
true  and  a  matter  of  some  importance  that  if  by  any 
chance  the  textbook  happened  to  be  literature,  the 
scheme  had  a  tendency  to  dull  if  not  destroy  their 
perception  of  this  important  fact.  One  of  the  text- 
books —  Green's  "Short  History  of  England"  —  was 
literature,  but  apparently  the  Sophomores  of  1879 
never  found  it  out.  A  member  of  that  class,  and  prob- 
ably not  a  misleading  representative  of  current  opin- 
ion, denounced  it  in  the  college  paper  "as  spun  out 
by  a  verbose  and  flowing  elaboration.  .  .  .  Let  us 
have  no  more  of  Mr.  Green!"  2 

Professor  Perry  not  only  taught  but  wrote  history. 
His  "Origins  in  Williams  town,"  published  in  1894, 
belongs  to  the  class  of  works  sometimes  called  "  monu- 
mental." It  contains  a  detailed  and  authoritative 
account  of  Fort  Massachusetts,  of  West  Hoosac,  and 
of  Williamstown  to  the  opening  of  the  Revolutionary 
War.  In  this  volume  also  he  endeavored  with  notable 
though  not  absolute  success  to  write  a  definitive 
biography  of  Ephraim  Williams.  His  "Williamstown 

1  President  J.  B.  Angell,  in  his  Reminiscences  (p.  29),  says  that  this 
method  prevailed  in  Brown  University  when  the  subject  permitted  it. 
" 1  think  that  nearly  one  fourth  of  the  men  in  my  class  in  Senior  Year 
(1849)  used  to  learn  in  two  hours  —  and  that  after  an  indigestible  din- 
ner in  Commons  —  fifteen  pages  of  Smith's  Lectures  on  History  so 
that  they  could  repeat  them  with  little  variation  from  the  text." 

2  "Diogenet,"  in  the  Williams  Athen&um,  March  29,  1879. 

272 


THE  NEW  WILLIAMS 

and  Williams  College/'  published  five  years  after  the 
"Origins,"  from  a  literary  point  of  view  is  the  best  of 
his  books,  but  it  abounds  in  criticisms  of  three  suc- 
cessive Presidents  of  the  institution  —  Mark  Hop- 
kins, Paul  Ansel  Chadbourne,  and  Franklin  Carter  — 
which  provoked  sharp  and  general  protest  among  the 
alumni. 

It  was  in  the  field  of  economics  that  Professor  Perry 
won  special  distinction.  His  first  treatise  on  that  sub- 
ject—  " Introduction  to  Political  Economy"  —  ap- 
peared in  1865,  passed  through  many  editions,  and 
gave  him  an  international  reputation.  Certainly 
before  the  date  of  its  publication  no  more  important 
work  had  been  done  in  the  United  States  —  not  at 
Yale  by  Woolsey,  nor  at  Columbia  by  Lieber,  nor  at 
Harvard  by  Bowen.1  A  radical  free-trader,  who  as- 
sailed the  theories  of  protection  in  newspaper  articles 
and  public  addresses  as  well  as  in  his  books  and  class- 
room, he  could  not  fail  to  offend  many  alumni  and 
friends  of  the  college.  In  1882  fourteen  of  them  sent 
a  communication  to  the  Trustees  denouncing  his 
"Cobdenism"  as  "most  inexpedient,  unwise,  and  un- 
just." 2  The  Trustees  declined  to  interfere. 

In  teaching  political  economy  Professor  Perry  did 
not  expect  the  textbook  to  be  memorized.  The  class- 
room hour  was  devoted  quite  as  much  to  discussion  as 
to  recitation.  If  any  inquiring  or  belligerent  student 
wanted  a  hearing  he  got  it.  Sometimes  he  risked  a 
tilt  with  the  professor  —  an  adventure  in  which  he 
seldom  achieved  any  success  to  speak  of.  Dr.  Perry 

1  Professor  C.  J.  Bullock,  MS.  letter. 

*  Perry,  Williamstown  and  Williams  College,  698. 

273 


WILLIAMS  COLLEGE 

stated  his  own  views  with  a  positiveness  that  some- 
times verged  upon  dogmatism.  While  modest  enough 
about  matters  beyond  the  scope  of  his  special  studies, 
and  willing  to  be  instructed  by  any  one  who  under- 
took the  task,  his  meekness  and  docility  disappeared 
when  on  ground  he  had  made  his  own.  And  as  for 
practical  results,  the  great  majority  of  students,  im- 
pressed by  his  sincerity,  enthusiasm,  and  gifts  of 
forceful  speech,  accepted  at  least  provisionally  his 
economic  theories. 

John  Bascom,  who  died  at  Williamstown,  October 
2,  1916,  at  the  age  of  eighty-four,  was  a  member  of 
the  faculty  as  tutor,  lecturer  on  Sociology,  Professor 
of  Rhetoric  or  of  Political  Economy,  thirty-seven 
years.  These  years,  with  the  thirteen  from  1874  to 
1887,  when  he  was  President  of  the  University  of 
Wisconsin,  made  a  total  of  half  a  century  of  active 
service  in  academic  work.  It  was  a  curious  irony  of 
fate  that  none  of  the  subjects  which  he  taught  during 
the  long  Williamstown  period  greatly  interested  him. 
They  were  all  subordinate  to  his  passion  for  phi- 
losophy, a  subject  which  he  never  taught  except  dur- 
ing the  relatively  brief  Wisconsin  period.  That  was 
the  golden  era  of  his  teaching  when  theme  and  occa- 
sion conspired  to  put  him  at  his  best. 

Yet  we  are  not  by  any  means  to  suppose  that  it 
was  a  mere  affair  of  routine  at  Williams  when  he  criti- 
cised undergraduate  essays,  or  conducted  classes  in 
Campbell's  Rhetoric  and  Spaulding's  History  of  Eng- 
lish Literature,  or  expounded  his  theories  of  sociology 
and  political  economy.  Many  Williams  students,  like 
Washington  Gladden,  have  felt  that  no  other  member 

274 


THE  NEW  WILLIAMS 

of  the  faculty  contributed  so  largely  to  their  intel- 
lectual life.1 

Dr.  Bascom  wrote  more  than  a  score  of  books  and 
they  deal  with  a  variety  of  subjects,  such  as  politi- 
cal economy,  aesthetics,  rhetoric,  English  literature, 
sociology,  theology,  and  philosophy.  These  books, 
characterized  by  originality  of  thought  and  an  excep- 
tional turn  for  phrase-making,  ought  to  have  had  a 
more  general  recognition  than  was  accorded  to  them. 
They  failed  to  afford  his  theories,  speculations,  and 
ideals  that  wide  "  reflection  in  words  we  so  often  prize 
more  highly  than  the  thing  itself." 2  In  the  "  personal 
memorabilia"  published  after  his  death,  he  comments 
upon  the  fact  that  none  of  them  sold  to  any  consider- 
able extent.  One  class  of  critics,  he  said,  thought  that 
he  had  written  too  much,  and  his  reply  to  them  is 
characteristic  —  "Life  must  be  left  to  lift  itself,  to  de- 
clare itself  as  it  is  and  where  it  is."  3  Another  class  of 
critics,  who  complained  that  his  style  is  obscure,  might 
quote  this  reply  in  proof  of  the  charge.  However  that 
may  be,  many  readers  have  found  "it  hard  to  keep 
step  with  his  discussions."  This  difficulty  puzzled 
him  —  the  reasons  for  it,  he  said,  are  "  not  obvious  to 
me."  Possibly  the  fact  that  his  style  is  compounded 
out  of  the  language  of  poetry  and  philosophy,  that  it 
gravitates  toward  inverted  and  eccentric  construc- 
tions, may  be  a  partial  explanation  of  the  trouble. 

But  these  uncompromising  books,  with  all  their 
unique  and  striking  qualities,  did  not  so  fully  exhibit 
the  man  as  the  lectures  and  obiter  dicta  of  the  class- 

1  Congregationalism  October  21,  1911. 

*  Bascom,  Things  Learned  by  Living,  iv.        '  Ibid.,  180. 

275 


WILLIAMS  COLLEGE 

room.  It  was  a  dull,  out-of-place  student  who  failed 
to  feel  the  push  and  stimulus  of  his  personality,  the 
contagion  of  his  unworldly  idealism  and  the  uplift  of 
his  pungent  talk. 


CHAPTER  IX 

LOOKING   BEFORE  AND  AFTER 


EBENEZER  FITCH  considered  "the  situation  of  the 
college  .  .  .  highly  favorable  to  the  improvement  and 
morals  of  the  youth  "  and  hoped  that  the  same  "happy 
consequence"  would  continue  "through  every  suc- 
cessive generation  of  students. " 1  Notwithstanding  all 
the  disagreeable  things  that  were  said  about  Williams- 
town  in  the  hard-fought  campaign  for  removal,  disci- 
ples of  the  first  President  were  to  be  found  among  the 
undergraduates  long  after  the  close  of  his  administra- 
tion. The  student  historians,  David  Ames  Wells  and 
Samuel  Henry  Davis,  who  published  the  "Sketches 
of  Williams  College/*  preferred  the  situation  of  the 
institution  "in  all  respects  to  that  of  any  other." 
Climate,  scenery,  and  isolation  in  a  secluded  country 
town  were  wholly  to  their  mind.2 

The  spell  of  remoteness  touched  not  only  these 
student  historians,  but  editors  of  the  "Quarterly"  as 
well.  In  1854  rumors  of  the  possible  advent  of  a  rail- 
road got  abroad.  Whatever  the  general  sentiment  of 
the  community  may  have  been,  these  editors  bewailed 
the  prospect  of  having  the  world  too  much  with  them. 
"The  quiet  rural  character  of  our  little  village,"  they 
lamented,  "is  about  to  be  changed.  The  stages, 

1  Mass.  Hist.  Society,  Collections,  vm,  53. 
*  Sketches  of  Williams  College,  53-56. 

277 


WILLIAMS  COLLEGE 

which  now  carry  into  town  heaped  loads  of  students 
at  the  beginning  of  every  term,  seeming  to  cut  us  off 
from  the  big,  bustling  world  and  to  leave  us  alone 
among  the  solemn  old  hills  will  soon  be  remembered 
only  by  old  graduates.  .  .  .  Already  the  road  is  sur- 
veyed. .  .  .  Perhaps  it  is  wise  .  .  .  (and)  will  benefit  the 
college.  But  we  ...  doubt."  l  The  depressed  spokes- 
men for  seclusion  agreed  with  a  prophet  of  evil  who 
declared  in  a  letter  to  the  " Quarterly"  that  nothing 
in  the  fortunes  of  a  country  town  could  be  more  "  de- 
testable" than  the  advent  of  a  railroad. 

Whatever  charms  and  fascinations  the  solitude  of 
Williamstown  may  have  had  for  dreamy  and  poetic 
undergraduates  three  quarters  of  a  century  ago,  it 
could  not  continue  indefinitely.  The  growth  of  the 
country  in  population  and  resources  must  inevitably 
modify  the  conditions  and  patronage  of  the  college. 
Classified  on  the  basis  of  the  statistics  of  the  first 
graduating  class  it  was  literally  a  neighborhood  insti- 
tution. Then  followed  a  gradual  though  fluctuating 
enlargement  in  the  geographical  area  of  its  constitu- 
ency. From  1793  to  1815  sixty  per  cent  of  the  gradu- 
ates came  from  Massachusetts  and  twenty-five  per 
cent  from  Connecticut  —  New  York,  Vermont,  New 
Hampshire,  and  Virginia  furnishing  the  remainder. 
In  the  troubled  times  of  President  Moore  the  percent- 
age of  Massachusetts  rose  to  seventy-five  and  that  of 
Connecticut  fell  to  fifteen.  During  the  administra- 
tion of  Dr.  Griffin  one  half  of  the  graduates  were  Bay 
State  men,  and  New  York  succeeded  Connecticut  in 
the  second  place.  Since  the  academic  year  1851-52, 

1  Editor's  Table,  Williams  Quarterly,  February,  1854. 
278 


LOOKING  BEFORE  AND  AFTER 

New  York  has  sent  more  students  to  Williamstown 
than  any  other  Commonwealth  —  the  percentage  in 
1916  being  thirty-five  when  the  constituency  em- 
braced twenty-nine  States  and  one  foreign  country.1 
At  the  outset,  and  long  after,  Williams  was  em- 
phatically a  poor  man's  college.  The  founders  of  it 
proposed  to  establish  that  sort  of  institution,  In  their 
petition  to  the  Legislature  for  a  charter  which  should 
transform  the  Free  School  into  "a  seminary  of  a  more 
public  and  important  nature/'  they  laid  particular 
stress  upon  the  fact  that  the  small  cost  of  living  at 
Williamstown  would  bring  "the  means  of  a  liberal 
education  .  .  .  within  the  powers  of  the  middling  and 
lower  classes."  And,  as  was  proper  in  view  of  their 
avowed  purpose  "to  lessen  expenses,"  they  put  col- 
lege bills  at  the  moderate  figure  of  one  hundred  shil- 
lings or  sixteen  dollars  and  sixty-six  cents  a  year.  And 
they  were  careful  to  say  in  the  prospectus  announcing 
the  opening  that  "the  victualling  of  Academy  boys 
had  not  exceeded  eighty-three  cents  a  week."  2  The 

1  According  to  Professor  Hewitt  —  Alumni  Review,  February,  1911 
—  about  seven  per  cent  of  Williams  graduates  came  from  Williams- 
town.  In  1914  fourteen  per  cent  came  from  within  a  radius  of  fifty 
miles,  twenty-three  per  cent  from  within  that  of  one  hundred  miles. 
Ninety- four  per  cent  lived  east  of  the  Mississippi  and  north  of  the  Ohio. 
(The  General  Education  Board,  1902-1914,  130.) 

2  Vermont  Gazette,  August   16,    1793.      The  following  bill   (Mass. 
Archives,  xxxu,  705)  throws  some  light  on  the  cost  of  living  in  the 
Berkshires  thirty-seven  years  earlier:  — 

Prov.  of  Massachusetts  to  Jonathan  Edwards  of  Stockbridge  Dr. 
To  timber  for  building  the  Fort  about  the  Minister's  House  at 

Stockbridge  which  cost  me  205  L  M £1-0-0 

To  180  meals  to  Indians  that  wrought  at  the  Fort  at  4^ 3-0-0 

£4-0-0 

Errors  excepted. 

STOCKBRIDGE,  JONATHAN  EDWARDS. 

January  30,  1756. 

279 


WILLIAMS  COLLEGE 

upshot  of  the  whole  matter  was  that  until  the  nine- 
teenth century  was  more  than  half  spent,  "the  mid- 
dling and  lower  classes'*  and  scarcely  anybody  else 
patronized  the  college. 

Annual  catalogues  previous  to  1822  contain  no 
estimates  of  student  expenses,  and  information  from 
other  quarters  is  not  abundant.  Charles  Frederick 
Sedgwick,  a  graduate  in  the  class  of  1813,  wrote  — 
after  the  lapse  of  sixty-eight  years  —  "The  common 
boarding-houses  charged  9  shillings  ($1.50)  per  week. 
...  I  think  the  cash  paid  ...  for  (my  college)  edu- 
cation .  .  .  was  about  $600.  ...  I  kept  a  horse  during 
the  last  two  summers  .  .  .  which  I  could  pasture  for 
34  cents  a  week."  l  Another  member  of  the  class  of 
1813,  Charles  Jenkins,  tutor  in  1816-19,  boarded  at 
President  Moore's  during  the  autumn  term  of  1818 
—  a  period  of  thirteen  weeks  —  and  his  bill  was 


The  catalogue  of  1822  contains  the  first  official 
statement  in  regard  to  expenses  since  the  announce- 
ment of  the  opening  of  the  college  in  1793.  Prices  had 
advanced  somewhat  during  the  intervening  twenty 
years.  If  the  "victualling"  of  Free  School  boys  cost 
eighty-three  cents  a  week,  that  of  students  in  1822 
ranged  "from  one  dollar  to  one  dollar  and  thirty-four 
cents."  The  lower  rate  could  be  secured  "by  walking 
a  mile."  And  the  term  bills  for  the  year  amounted 
"to  about  thirty  dollars."  Attention  is  called  to  the 
fact  that  "the  best  wood  is  sold  for  one  dollar  a 

1  Letter,  March  I,  1881,  in  Perry,  Williamstown  and  Williams  Col- 
lege, 350. 

2  Jenkins'  MS.  Diary,  Notices,  etc.,  December  23,  1818. 

280 


LOOKING  BEFORE  AND  AFTER 

cord"  and  that  "from  twelve  to  seventeen  cents  a 
week  is  paid  for  washing."  1 

In  the  catalogue  of  1828-29  there  is  a  more  formal 
tabulation  of  expenses.  The  minimum  figures  were 
then  $79  for  the  college  year.  When  Mark  Hopkins 
became  President  in  1836-37,  they  had  risen  to  $92, 
and  during  the  next  decade  or  two  they  increased 
rather  slowly.  Yet  this  modest  scale  of  living  over- 
taxed the  resources  of  some  students  and  drove  them 
to  heroic  measures  of  economy. 

"I  boarded  myself  five  weeks,"  wrote  one  of  them 
in  1832.  "The  first  two  weeks  I  lived  entirely  on 
bread  and  milk,  I  afterwards  got  a  little  butter  and  a 
few  pounds  of  rice  for  variety  and  for  3  or  4  of  the 
last  days  I  lived  ...  on  bread  and  cheese.  My  fur- 
niture, consisting  of  a  pitcher,  plate,  bowl,  spoon, 
knife  and  fork  cost  me  37^  cents.  ...  I  have  lived 
tolerable  comfortable  on  my  i^  pounds  of  bread  and 
quart  of  milk  a  day  but  found  at  the  end  that  the 
bones  began  to  appear  from  my  pale  visage.  My 
board  cost  me  2  or  3  cents  over  half  a  dollar  per 
week."  This  intrepid  young  man  was  not  discouraged 
at  all  by  his  lean  five  weeks  of  semi-starvation.  "If 
I  board  myself  again,"  he  continued,  "as  I  intend 

1  Catalogue,  November,  1822.  There  were  eight  men  in  college  under 
the  patronage  of  the  American  Education  Society  during  the  academic 
year  1822-23,  and  their  expenses,  including  clothing  and  incidentals, 
averaged  $161.71.  The  expenses  of  "Beneficiaries"  of  the  Society  in 
seven  other  institutions  were  —  in  Middlebury,  $106.22;  in  Amherst 
$112.92;  in  Dartmouth,  $151.67;  in  Yale,  $180.16;  in  Union,  $200.06; 
and  in  Harvard,  $251.55.  Board  at  Williamstown  cost  $1.20  a  week  — 
the  cheapest  in  New  England  except  at  Amherst,  where  it  was  fifteen 
cents  a  week  less.  The  eight  Williams  students  earned  $2.36  by  teaching 
and  $59  by  manual  labor.  (Report  of  the  American  Education  Society, 
1822-23.) 

281 


WILLIAMS    COLLEGE 

to  do  occasionally,  I  shall  try  to  have  a  greater 
variety. " 

Martin  Ingham  Townshend,  Member  of  Congress, 
Regent  of  the  University  of  the  State  of  New  York, 
wrote  an  account  of  his  college  times --the  years 
1829-33  —  for  the  "  Gulielmensian  "  of  1895:  — 

"  My  father  resided  three  miles  south  of  the  college. 
He  had  an  excellent  farm,  fairly  stocked,  clear  of  debt, 
but  nothing  more.  Until  the  day  of  my  graduation  J 
never  had  an  article  of  woolen  clothing  which  was  not 
spun  and  completed  and  made  upon  the  farm  from 
the  wool  of  our  own  sheep,  and  I  never  wore  a  boot  or 
shoe  that  was  not  made  from  the  hides  of  our  own 
herd,  slaughtered  on  our  own  farm.  Three  years  of 
the  four  of  my  college  life  I  boarded  at  home;  I  occu- 
pied a  dormitory  at  the  college.  We  arose  early,  at 
the  sound  of  the  bell,  attended  prayers  and  morning 
recitations  and  then  I  walked  three  miles  to  my  home, 
breakfasted,  and  returned  with  my  dinner  and  supper 
in  a  basket  upon  my  arm.  I  chopped  my  wood  in  our 
own  groves,  in  vacation,  into  twelve  feet  lengths,  and 
drew  it  to  college  and  piled  it  upon  the  green  and  pre- 
pared it  for  the  fireplace  with  saw  and  axe  in  the  leisure 
hours  of  the  term.  The  preparation  of  their  own  wood 
was  largely  practiced  by  students."  2 

Samuel  James  Andrews,  author  of  the  "Life  of  Our 
Lord  upon  Earth,'*  for  many  years  a  standard  author- 
ity in  theological  circles,  who  graduated  six  years  after 
Martin  Ingham  Townshend,  sent  a  letter  of  reminis- 
cence to  the  Hartford  Alumni  Association  in  1906:- 

1  L.  H.  Pease  (1835),  MS.  letter,  November  22,  1832. 

2  Gulielmensian,  xxxix,  20,  21  (condensed). 

282 


LOOKING  BEFORE  AND  AFTER 

"In  my  day  .  .  .  the  village  of  Williamstown  was 
small  and  straggling,  the  college  edifices  few  and  rude, 
the  scenery  alone  was  varied  and  grand;  .  .  .  The  stu- 
dents were  for  the  most  part ...  the  sons  of  farmers. 
...  It  was  eminently  a  poor  man's  college — one  in 
which  the  student  might  receive  a  good  education  at 
the  least  cost.  There  was  little  of  the  social  conven- 
tionalities or  of  the  irritating  inequalities  which  the 
display  of  wealth  brings.  My  classmates  were  .  .  . 
obliged  to  live  very  economically ,  wearing  homespun  l 
and  minimizing  expenses  in  every  way."  2 

In  1911  a  former  President  of  the  University  of 
California,  Horace  Davis  (1848),  gave  an  address 
before  the  students  of  that  institution,  on  "  the  condi- 
tions of  Williams  College  in  ...  1845-46":  — 

"  Sixty-six  years  ago  ...  a  boy  fourteen  years  old 
stepped  into  the  office  of  President  Hopkins  .  .  .  and 
said  he  had  come  to  present  himself  to  pass  the  exam- 
ination to  enter  Sophomore.  He  was  turned  over  to 
Professor  Tatlock.  ...  As  his  diary  kept  at  that  date 
.  .  .  said  —  'I  read  a  passage  in  Livy  ...  a  section  in 
Herodotus  and  did  two  sums  in  Algebra  and  that  was 
all.'  .  .  . 

"  I  am  going  to  begin  with  the  morning  and  go 
through  the  day.  .  .  .  The  warning  bell  .  .  .  rang  at 
half  past  five  in  the  summer  and  at  six  in  the  winter. 
In  the  summer  that  was  all  right  because  the  sun  was 
up  and  it  was  reasonably  warm ;  but  in  winter  it  rang 
an  hour  before  the  sun  came  up,  and  when  the  ther- 

1  William  Hyde  (1826)  wore  a  coat  in  his  Freshman  year  made  out  of 
his  mother's  wedding  gown.  (Springfield  Republican,  July  8,  1850.) 
1  Andrews,  MS.  letter,  December  25,  1906. 

283 


WILLIAMS  COLLEGE 

mometer  was  down  to  fifteen  below  zero  it  was  pretty 
tough.  .  .  .  Then  we  had  to  light  the  lamp  and  per- 
haps it  would  not  burn  because  the  oil  was  frozen; 
and  then  try  to  start  a  fire;  and  then  perhaps  have  to 
draw  water  from  the  well  before  we  could  wash  our- 
selves. One  morning  .  .  .  the  well  itself  was  frozen. 
.  .  .  The  second  bell  tolled  half  an  hour  after  the  first. 
.  .  .  signified  that  we  had  to  be  in  Chapel  at  prayers. 
As  soon  as  I  got  my  clothes  on  ...  I  started  out.  Per- 
haps it  had  been  snowing  during  the  night  and  I 
had  a  quarter  of  a  mile  to  beat  my  way  through  drifts 
before  I  reached  the  Chapel  ...  a  room  which  had 
absolutely  no  fire,  a  room  where  the  thermometer  was 
down  below  zero  again  and  again  in  the  morning  .  .  . 
no  carpets  on  the  floor,  no  cushions  on  the  seats.  .  .  . 
One  of  the  professors  would  read  a  chapter  in  the 
Bible  and  then  offer  a  prayer.  ...  I  have  seen  the 
light  go  out  while  he  was  reading  because  the  oil  was 
frozen  in  the  lamp.  They  always  provided  against 
that  contingency  by  keeping  one  lighted  candle  on 
the  reading  desk.  .  .  .  When  the  lamp  went  out  the 
professor  would  quietly  shut  his  Bible  and  offer  his 
prayer  by  the  light  of  the  candle.  .  .  . 

"The  recitation  rooms  of  the  lower  classes  were  in 
the  West  College.  We  had  about  a  quarter  of  a  mile 
to  run  to  get  there  and  we  were  always  sure  to  find  a 
room  well-lighted  and  well-warmed  because  a  fellow 
slept  in  it  and  was  allowed  his  rent  in  consideration  of 
building  the  fire  and  keeping  it  in  order.  He  had  a 
kind  of  folding  bed  against  the  wall.  .  .  .  There  we 
spent  an  hour  at  recitation.  Then  came  breakfast. 
.  .  .  From  nine  to  eleven  occurred  what  we  called 

284 


LOOKING  BEFORE  AND  AFTER 

study  hours  and  it  meant  business.  We  had  to  be 
in  our  rooms  and  attending  to  the  study  end  of  it. 
.  .  .  Then  came  the  second  recitation.  .  .  .  Dinner 
at  twelve  o'clock.  .  .  .  From  two  to  four  .  .  .  more 
study  hours.  ...  At  four  o'clock  we  went  through  our 
third  recitation.  .  .  .  No  lectures,  these  were  all  reci- 
tations. ...  At  six  came  supper  and  after  supper  our 
time  was  our  own."  1 

The  Williams  of  1793-1846  left  little  to  be  desired 
in  the  matter  of  a  poor  man's  college.  Yet,  improbable 
as  the  transformation  might  seem,  long  before  the  end 
of  the  last  century  rumors  began  to  be  current  that 
the  institution  was  abandoning  its  original  mission  to 
"the  middling  and  lower  classes"  and  becoming  a 
rich  man's  college.  These  rumors  disturbed  President 
Carter  so  much  that  he  devoted  considerable  space  in 
his  "Report"  for  1887-88  to  a  discussion  of  them. 

"I  believe,"  he  said,  "that  this  college,  in  spite  of 
the  increasing  elegance  of  its  surroundings  and  society- 
buildings,  is  as  democratic  a  college  as  exists  in  New 
England.  ...  It  is  not  praise  but  a  misrepresentation 
that  'the  college  has  become  a  place  for  rich  men's 
sons.'  It  is  no  more  a  place  for  rich  men's  sons  than 
it  was  thirty  years  ago.  ...  If  there  is  one  purpose 
running  through  the  entire  management  of  the  col- 
lege it  is  to  secure  to  every  student,  whatever  may  be 
his  belongings,  all  the  privileges  and  inspirations  that 
the  college  offers  to  her  sons." 2  What  President 
Carter  said  in  1888  may  be  said  with  no  less  emphasis 
in  1916.  For  students  who  must  partly  support  them- 

1  Davis,  University  of  California  Chronicle,  xiv,  no.  I. 

2  Carter,  Report,  June,  1888. 

285 


WILLIAMS  COLLEGE 

selves  a  small  country  town  has  obvious  disadvan- 
tages. Naturally  they  drift  to  the  larger  communities 
where  opportunities  to  earn  money  are  more  abun- 
dant. But  the  principal  thing  is  the  spirit  of  the  insti- 
tution —  not  the  architecture  of  the  campus  or  the 
bank  account  of  undergraduates. 

II 

College  fraternities,  which  have  developed  from 
"an  irresponsible  group  of  boys"1  into  a  great  and 
firmly  intrenched  system,  began  at  Williams  during 
the  academic  year  1832-33.  The  first  project  of  this 
sort  —  an  attempt  to  organize  a  chapter  of  the  Phi 
Beta  Kappa  Society2  —  failed,  but  in  the  autumn  of 
1833  the  Kappa  Alpha  Fraternity  and  a  few  months 
later  the  Sigma  Phi  were  established.  Whatever  the 
cause  of  it  may  have  been  —  jealousy,  questionings 
in  regard  to  the  principle  of  secrecy,  or  recent  anti- 
Masonic  demonstrations  —  the  innovation  awakened 
a  hostility  general  and  aggressive  enough  to  cause  the 
formation  in  November,  1834,  of  a  society,  called  at 
first  the  Sociable  and  later  the  Equitable  Fraternity, 
with  the  avowed  "purpose  of  counteracting  the  evil 
tendency  of  secret  organizations." 3  For  twenty-nine 
years  this  fraternity  fought  them  and  then  gave  up 
the  contest  as  a  lost  cause.  Though  the  long  cam- 
paign failed,  it  was  marked  by  some  signal  successes. 
In  1838  two  thirds  of  all  the  students  in  college  be- 
longed to  the  anti-secret  order  and  for  the  next  decade 

1  Cyclopedia  of  Education,  n,  688. 

2  The  Williams  Chapter  was  not  established  until  1864.    (Williams 
Quarterly,  vin,  275,  276.) 

5  Records  of  the  Equitable  Fraternity. 

286 


LOOKING  BEFORE  AND  AFTER 

the  membership  seldom  fell  below  one  half  of  them. 
Feeling  between  the  factions  often  ran  high,  especially 
in  the  earlier  years,  and  occasionally  broke  out  into 
disorder.  An  instance  of  the  ruder  collisions  occurred 
in  1839.  Late  at  night  a  company  of  anti-secret  men, 
angered  by  the  defection  of  some  of  their  number, 
"assaulted"  the  quarters  of  the  Kappa  Alpha  Society 
on  Water  Street.1  "One  of  our  number,"  wrote  a 
participant  in  the  melee,  "seized  an  old  Queen  Anne 
musket  and  another  an  ancient  sabre  and  we  all  sal- 
lied forth  and  drove  the  gang  to  the  top  of  Consump- 
tion Hill,  where  we  suddenly  found  ourselves  con- 
fronted by  Albert  Hopkins," 2  whose  appearance  upon 
the  scene  —  such  was  his  prestige  as  an  athlete  with 
whom  nobody  should  venture  to  meddle — brought  the 
noisy  affray  to  an  abrupt  conclusion.  That  species  of 
hostility  soon  died  out,  but  the  warfare  of  discussion, 
of  controversial  pamphlets,  and  personal  appeals  con- 
tinued. In  November,  1855,  two  Greek-letter  frater- 
nities —  the  Kappa  Alpha  and  Alpha  Delta  Phi  — 
challenged  "the  Oudens"3  to  a  public  debate  on  the 
question,  "Resolved,  that  the  Anti-Secret  Society  in 
college  is  uncalled  for  and  inefficient."  The  Equi- 
table Fraternity  promptly  accepted  the  proposal  and 
appointed  James  Abram  Garfield,  Andrew  Parsons, 
and  Charles  Augustine  Stork  as  its  representatives. 
Formal  articles  of  procedure  were  drawn  up,  but  the 
affair  never  got  beyond  that  point.  The  representa- 
tives of  the  Greek-letter  fraternities  finally  withdrew 

1  Kappa  Alpha  Record,  100. 

1  James  S.  Knowlton  (1842),  MS.  letter. 

8  The  anti-secret  men  were  generally  called  "Oudens"  at  that  time. 

287 


WILLIAMS  COLLEGE 

from  the  contest  which  they  had  proposed,  pleading 
in  apology  "  want  of  time  to  do  justice  to  the  subject," 
and  reluctance  "to  make  an  excitement  in  college."  1 
Under  the  circumstances  they  probably  decided 
wisely.  Why  should  they  take  the  risks  of  a  public 
discussion  when,  with  James  Abram  Garfield  leading 
the  opposition,  the  prospects  of  forensic  success  were 
not  particularly  bright?  Besides,  the  drift  of  college 
sentiment  had  now  become  unmistakable  and  the  end 
of  all  organized  hostility  was  not  far  away.  October  6, 
1864,  the  handful  of  surviving  members  passed  a  vote 
"  declaring  the  Anti-Secret  Society  of  Williams  Col- 
lege dissolved."2  Some  twenty  years  later  it  was 
revived  as  "a  chapter  of  the  Fraternity  of  Delta 
Upsilon"  and  now  lives  at  peace  with  its  foretime 
enemies. 

After  the  collapse  of  the  Equitable  Fraternity  there 
seems  to  have  been  a  period  of  truce,  which  continued 
until  the  summer  of  1868,  when  George  Field  Lawton 
and  other  students  sent  a  petition  to  the  Trustees 
"  asking  for  the  abolition  of  secret  societies  in  col- 
lege."3 This  petition,  referred  to  a  committee  con- 
sisting of  the  Rev.  Dr.  John  Todd,  the  Rev.  Dr. 
Robert  Russell  Booth,  and  the  Hon.  Joseph  White, 
was  never  heard  of  again.  George  Lawton's  petition, 
however,  must  be  rated  a  mild,  negligible  demonstra- 
tion compared  with  a  sermon  which  John  Bascom 
preached  in  the  college  chapel,  one  Sunday  afternoon, 
six  weeks  later.  "  I  have  seen  these  societies,"  he  said, 
"on  the  inside  and  on  the  outside,  have  enjoyed  their 

1  Records  of  the  Equitable  Fraternity,  1856.  2  Ibid.,  1864. 

1  Records  of  the  Trustees,  July  27,  1868. 

288 


LOOKING  BEFORE  AND  AFTER 

advantages  and  marked  their  evils.  ...  A  society  in 
college  can  have  no  worthy,  ostensible  end  to  which 
secrecy  is  a  fit,  natural  and  necessary  means.  .  .  .  You 
have  nothing  which  you  have  the  least  occasion  to 
keep  secret  —  excepting  always  mischief.  ...  If  I 
could  dissolve  these  fraternities  back  into  their  orig- 
inal atoms  and  leave  them  to  rearrange  themselves 
once  more  under  the  free  elastic  affinities  of  honest 
sentiments,  open,  manly  purposes  and  an  unbiassed 
sense  of  duty,  I  would  no  more  hesitate  to  do  it,  than 
I  would  to  break  down  a  monopoly,  overturn  an  aris- 
tocracy, subvert  a  superstition  or  dissolve  any  exclu- 
sive, tyrannical  league."  l 

After  this  brief  revival  the  discussion  again  became 
quiescent  until  the  Commencement  of  1880.  It  then 
broke  out  with  considerable  violence  at  the  meeting 
of  the  alumni.  David  Dudley  Field  declared  that  the 
secret  societies  ought  to  be  "  cut  up  by  the  roots,"  and 
that,  if  he  were  a  Trustee,  the  thing  should  be  done; 
Martin  Ingham  Townshend  did  not  see  his  way  to 
anything  more  radical  than  to  "beg  the  boys  to  be 
considerate  " ;  while  Erastus  Cornelius  Benedict (1821) 
said  he  had  been  assured  by  four  of  the  most  distin- 
guished educators  in  the  country  that,  on  the  whole, 
the  influence  of  fraternities  was  good.2 

Occasionally  the  Greek-letter  societies  have  had 
troubles  of  their  own  which  attracted  attention  — 
troubles  for  which  neither  the  Equitable  Fraternity, 
nor  the  crusading  sermon  of  John  Bascom,  nor  the 
hostile  talk  of  David  Dudley  Field  was  responsible. 

1  Bascom,  Sermon,  Williams  College  Chapel,  September  12,  1868. 
1  Springfield  Republican,  July  7,  1880. 

289 


WILLIAMS  COLLEGE 

Something  of  this  sort  happened  in  1840.  The  event 
itself  was  nothing  more  than  an  ordinary  case  of  dis- 
cipline, but  so  badly  managed  that  it  blew  up  a 
tremendous  tempest  in  college:  — 

The  Alpha  of  the  Sigma  Phi  Society 
of  Massachusetts, 

At  a  meeting  held  July  14,  1840,  unanimously 
adopted  the  following  resolution:  — 

Resolved,  That  SAMUEL  G.  WHEELER,  JR.,  in 
wilfully  violating  the  rules  of  our  fraternity  for- 
feits all  claim  to  our  fellowship  and  respect,  and 
that  all  connection  between  us  and  him  is  wholly 
dissolved. 

A  second  and  unofficial  edition  of  the  circular  soon 
appeared.  This  edition  was  a  reissue  of  the  first  with 
an  addendum  signed  by  seventeen  of  the  twenty-five 
members  of  the  class  of  1840,  four  of  whom  belonged 
to  the  Kappa  Alpha  Society:  — 

The  circulation  of  such  an  affair  as  that  upon 
the  other  side  of  this  leaf,  without  note  or  com- 
ment, where  parties  and  circumstances  are  un- 
known, might  bring  an  unpleasant,  and  perhaps 
injurious,  notoriety  to  the  individual  whose 
name  is  thus  made  use  of;  therefore,  we,  the 
undersigned  members  of  the  Senior  Class,  actu- 
ated by  a  desire  to  prevent  injury  in  the  present 
case,  entirely  uninvited,  subscribe  to  the  follow- 
ing statement. 

From  the  time  S.  G.  Wheeler,  Jr.,  became  a 

member  of  the  Sigma  Phi  Society  in  this  college, 

(a  year  since)  he  has  derived  neither  pleasure  nor 

profit,  as  he  asserts,  and  as  some  of  us  have  rea- 

290 


LOOKING  BEFORE  AND  AFTER 

sons  of  our  own  to  believe,  from  his  connection 
with  it.  For  about  six  months  he  has  been  indif- 
ferent to  it,  and  its  interests.  This,  and  the  fact 
that  he  refused  to  wear  his  badge  at  the  Adel- 
phic  Union  Exhibition  on  the  fifteenth  of  July, 
are  the  only  alleged  grounds  for  this  burlesque 
expulsion.  We  say  burlesque,  for  we  who  know 
him  and  the  Society,  regard  it  as  an  affair  both 
creditable  to  his  character  and  fortunate  for  his 
interests. 


The  man,  whom  the  Sigma  Phi  Society  disfellow- 
shipped  with  such  public  and  overdone  emphasis,  was 
valedictorian  of  the  class  of  1841,  a  successful  lawyer 
in  the  City  of  New  York,  and  a  contributor  to  the 
funds  of  the  college.  The  incident  is  of  importance 
chiefly  as  an  illustration  of  the  fierce  and  sudden 
storms  that  sometimes  swept  over  the  college  seventy 
years  ago. 

The  bill  of  indictment  against  Greek-letter  societies 
drawn  by  the  Equitable  Fraternity  and  later  oppo- 
nents revolves  mainly  about  four  points  —  they  are 
often  conducted  upon  an  unacademic  scale  of  lux- 
ury; create  mischievous  jealousies;  tend  to  lower  the 
standard  of  scholarship,  and  to  destroy  the  democracy 
which  ought  to  prevail  in  a  college  community.  What- 
ever may  be  said  in  support  of  this  bill  of  indictment, 
it  has  been  of  little  practical  effect.  The  obvious 
advantages  which  the  societies  afford  have  pushed 
aside  all  arguments  of  dissent..  These  advantages  may 
be  summarized  as — an  attractive  college  home;  the 
companionship,  and,  it  may  be,  especially  at  the  out- 
set, the  watchful  guardianship,  of  congenial  friends; 

291 


WILLIAMS  COLLEGE 

an  entree  into  the  exclusive  circles  of  student  life  and 
the  assurance  of  recognition  and  welcome  whenever 
after  graduation  alumni  members  return  to  their  Alma 
Mater.  If  one  would  fully  realize  the  futility  of  all  the 
warfare  upon  them  at  Williams,  it  is  only  necessary 
that  he  should  make  a  tour  of  the  college  campus. 
When  John  Bascom  delivered  his  philippic  there  were 
six  fraternities,  three  of  which  —  the  Sigma  Phi,  the 
Delta  Psi,  and  the  Alpha  Delta  Phi  —  owned  inex- 
pensive chapter  houses.  In  1915  the  number  of  these 
organizations  had  increased  to  fourteen  and  accord- 
ing to  Baird's  "  Manual"  for  that  year  the  valuation 
of  their  chapter  houses  was  $548,000  —  an  average  of 


in 

The  domiciliary  history  of  the  faculty  presents  some 
parallels,  but  more  contrasts  to  that  of  the  fraterni- 
ties. At  an  early  date  —  October  n,  1791,  fifteen 
days  before  the  opening  of  the  Free  School  —  the 
Trustees  voted  to  build  a  house  for  the  Preceptor. 
Finished  in  1794,  standing  originally  on  the  site  of 
Hopkins  Hall  and  removed  a  little  to  the  north  of  it 
in  1888,  this  house  was  occupied  by  President  Fitch 
and  his  successors  until  1858,  when  the  Corporation, 
at  the  suggestion  of  Nathan  Jackson,  who  accom- 
panied his  advice  with  a  gift  of  six  thousand  dollars 
toward  the  purchase,  bought  the  "  Sloan  Place/'  a 
beautiful  colonial  mansion,  which  ever  since  has  been 
the  President's  house.  Mark  Hopkins  occupied  it 

1  Baird,  Manual  of  American  College  Fraternities,  Eighth  Edition, 
871. 

292 


LOOKING  BEFORE  AND  AFTER 

from  1858  until  his  resignation  in  1872,  when  he 
removed  to  a  house  built  for  him  by  the  late  William 
E.  Dodge,  of  New  York,  on  the  site  of  Grace  Hall, 
from  which  it  was  removed  in  1910  to  become  an 
annex  of  the  Williams  Inn.  These  houses  and  two 
others  —  one  of  them  a  small,  indifferent  affair  taken 
down  to  make  room  for  the  old  Alumni  Hall  Chapel 
and  the  other  built  for  Professor  Lewellyn  Pratt  in 
the  seventies  of  the  last  century — comprised  the  resi- 
dential resources  of  the  Corporation  for  almost  a 
hundred  years.  In  this  long  period  the  professors 
made  what  shift  they  could  for  homes  —  some  of 
them  buying  such  houses  as  were  in  the  market  and 
others  building  new  ones.  Toward  the  close  of  it, 
when  the  teaching  staff  had  outgrown  the  narrow 
tenan table  resources  of  both  town  and  campus,  new- 
come  professors  were  liable  to  depressing  experiences. 
The  wife  of  one  of  them,  visiting  Williamstown  in  the 
spring  of  18 —  to  look  up  quarters,  wrote:  "I  have 
seldom  been  so  homesick  as  I  was  last  night.  It  rained 
hard  when  I  stepped  off  the  train  and  everything 
seemed  forlorn.  .  .  .  The  next  morning  —  I  went  to 

the  Kellogg  House  —  Professor  called  and 

was  thoroughly  polite.  I  shall  always  think  of  him 
as  a  friend  in  need.  He  went  all  about  with  me.  We 
looked  at  a  place  called,  I  think,  College  Hall,  the 
first  story  of  it  being  used  as  a  student  boarding-house 
and  the  second  as  a  dormitory.  I  almost  cried  when  I 
saw  the  rooms,  they  were  so  desolate  and  unhomelike. 
It  did  not  help  much  to  be  told  that  one  of  the  pro- 
fessors had  lived  in  them  for  a  time.  Then  we  visited 

a  tiny  cottage  on Street  which  distressed  me 

293 


WILLIAMS  COLLEGE 

—  close  to  barns,  cheaply  built,  and  surrounded  by 
all  sorts  of  debris.  When  that  is  cleared  up  the  place 
may  seem  different.  The  prospect  can  never  be  quite 
so  black  again.  .  .  .  There  is  nothing  here.  The  only 
homes  are  those  which  the  professors  have  built  or 
bought."1 

Times  have  changed  for  the  better  since  the  rainy 
and  forlorn  May  evening  of  18 — .  In  1916,  the  college 
owned  fourteen  dwelling-houses,  and  not  less  than 
thirteen  professors  and  instructors  whose  names 
appear  in  the  catalogue  of  that  year  had  homes  of 
their  own. 

iv     . 

Athletic  sports  at  the  present  day  presuppose  a 
well-equipped  gymnasium,  which  is  a  comparatively 
recent  addition  to  the  college  campus.  There  was  an 
effort  both  at  Harvard  and  Yale  to  provide  something 
of  the  sort  in  1826.  Williams  followed  their  example 
the  next  year  when  President  Griffin  and  Mr.  Tutor 
Mark  Hopkins  were  appointed  a  committee  to  man- 
age the  business  and  authorized  to  expend  one  hun- 
dred and  fifty  dollars  for  apparatus.2 

The  first  Berkshire  gymnasium  was  an  out-of-doors 
affair  and  the  making  of  it  attracted  the  attention  of 
a  newspaper  man  who  chanced  to  be  in  Williams- 
town.  "Upon  a  portion  of  the  college  grounds,"  he 
wrote,  "I  perceived  one  day  a  large  number  of  stu- 
dents at  work,  headed  by  their  venerable  president, 

1  MS.  letter. 

2  Records  of  the  Trustees,  May  8  and  September  5,  1827;  Records  of 
the  Faculty,  September  18,  1827. 

294 


LOOKING  BEFORE  AND  AFTER 

and  upon  examination  found  they  were  preparing 
a  gymnasium."  l 

With  what  equipment  this  open-air  institution  of 
1827  may  have  been  furnished  is  uncertain,  but  it 
must  have  been  meagre,  since  twenty  years  after- 
wards the  inventory  of  gymnastic  apparatus  com- 
prised only  a  horizontal  bar,  a  sliding-pole,  a  ladder 
for  hand-climbing,  and  three  swings.2 

For  a  long  period  —  it  lasted  more  than  half  a 
century  —  recreation  at  Williams  was  some  random 
diversion,  which  could  readily  be  taken  up  and  readily 
discarded.  The  talk  of  the  campus  revolved  about 
such  academic,  classroom  questions  as  who  was  the 
best  debater,  or  the  first  scholar,  or  the  most  promis- 
ing writer  —  questions  always  discussed  with  interest 
and  sometimes  with  passion.  Inter-class  football  ap- 
pears to  have  been  the  first  athletic  sport  to  awaken 
any  considerable  interest,  and  that  presently  fell  into 
such  grievous  disfavor  with  the  faculty  that  they 
passed  a  vote  prohibiting  it.  A  recent  game  between 
the  Junior  and  Sophomore  classes,  which  degenerated 
into  a  rough-and-tumble  fight,  provoked  this  drastic 
measure. 

The  old,  accidental,  miscellaneous  athletic  era  came 
to  a  close  in  1859,  when  Williams  played  its  first  inter- 
collegiate game  —  a  game  of  baseball  at  Pittsfield 
with  Amherst  —  and  was  defeated.  John  Bascom, 
who  attended  it,  said  that  the  Berkshire  players 
showed  the  "alertness  and  skill"  which  may  be 
acquired  "under  moderate  practice,"  while  the  vic- 

1  American  Traveller,  September  18,  1827. 
1  Porter,  Reunion  of  the  Class  of  1850,  20,  21. 

295 


WILLIAMS  COLLEGE 

torious  Amherst  players  "had  made  a  beginning  in 
those  careful  rules  which  have  taken  the  game  from 
the  region  of  sport  and  carried  it  into  the  region  of 
exact  and  laborious  discipline."  1  The  following  year 
and  on  the  4th  of  July  the  teams  of  these  colleges  met 
at  Westfield  for  a  second  contest,  which  resulted  in 
another  Amherst  victory.  One  might  naturally  sup- 
pose that  the  Williams  men  would  have  been  eager  to 
avenge  the  defeat  of  the  preceding  season,  but  they 
neglected  even  "the  moderate  practice"  that  was  in 
evidence  at  Pittsfield.  "Not  until  eight  days  before 
the  match,"  wrote  a  local  chronicler,  "were  the  play- 
ers selected,  and  not  until  the  Saturday  before  the 
fourth  did  they  all  meet  together  .  .  .  and  not  even 
then,  for  their  captain  was  absent  from  college." 2  A 
period  of  apathy  and  inaction  followed  —  a  period 
lasting  until  July  29,  1864,  when  Williams  defeated 
Harvard  at  Worcester,  the  score  being  nine  to  twelve 
in  favor  of  the  Berkshire  men. 

No  formal  discussion  of  questions  which  the  con- 
quests of  athletic  sports  in  the  college  world  have 
raised  will  be  undertaken.  It  is  only  necessary  to  say 
that  these  sports  are  a  modern  phase  of  traits  and 
tendencies  as  old  as  the  human  race.  That  great  ad- 
vantages attend  them  is  plain  enough.  They  afford 
vent  for  the  enthusiasms  of  youth,  promote  physical 
vigor,  enforce  rigorous  discipline,  stimulate  college 
spirit  and  the  sense  of  institutional  unity.  The  evils 

1  Bascom,  Williams  Alumni  Review,  October,  1910,  p.  13.  The  game 
at  Pittsfield  seems  to  have  been  the  first  instance  of  inter-collegiate 
baseball.     Perhaps  it  should  be  said  that  this  game  and  the  one  at 
Westfield  were  the  earlier  "Massachusetts"  type  of  it. 

2  Williams  Quarterly,  July,  1860. 

296 


LOOKING  BEFORE  AND  AFTER 

accompanying  them  arise  partly  from  their  limited 
scope,  since  for  the  great  majority  of  students  they 
make  little  provision  beyond  a  series  of  spectacular 
exhibitions  in  which  a  few  highly  trained  athletes 
compete,  and  partly  from  the  easy  liability  of  college 
communities  to  forget  that  all  their  "outside  activi- 
ties" should  be  subordinated  "to  the  use  and  mastery 
of  mental  power." 

To  mitigate  the  first  of  these  evils  a  somewhat 
elaborate  scheme  of  intra-mural  athletic  sports  has 
been  undertaken  at  Williams  and  promises  well. 
Already  they  occupy  a  prominent  place  in  the  life  of 
the  college  and  more  students  participate  in  them 
each  year.1 

In  regard  to  the  second  class  of  evils  —  the  menace 
of  athletic  sports  to  the  intellectual  work  of  the  col- 
lege —  the  administration  has  announced  its  attitude 
and  policy  in  unmistakable  terms.  "  If  the  trustees 
and  faculty,"  said  President  Garfield  in  his  "  Report" 
for  1914,  " .  .  .  insist  that  the  college  must  be  first  and 
always  an  educational  institution  and  if  on  the  other 
hand  undergraduates  place  social  and  athletic  inter- 
ests first  .  .  .  there  is  presented  an  issue  which  sooner 
or  later  must  be  fought  out  and  for  which  there  can 
be  no  compromise.  .  .  .  Now  it  is  clearly  perceived, 
and  I  am  convinced  that  the  undergraduates  in  large 
proportion  believe,  that  Williams  is  and  must  con- 
tinue to  be  primarily  an  institution  devoted  to  learn- 
ing."2 

One  interesting  event  in  the  athletic  history  was 
the  adoption  of  college  colors.  That  event  happened 

1  Garfield,  Report,  June,  1915.  *  Ibid.,  1914,  p.  7. 

297 


WILLIAMS  COLLEGE 

in  1865  when  the  team  was  leaving  for  Cambridge  to 
play  the  last  game  in  a  series  with  Harvard.  Two 
young  ladies  who  were  spending  the  summer  in  town, 
learning  that  Williams  had  no  college  colors,  hastily 
purchased  some  purple  ribbon,  made  small  rosettes 
of  it,  pinned  one  of  them  on  each  member  of  the  team, 
and  said,  "Let  this  royal  purple  be  the  Williams  col- 
ors and  may  it  bring  you  victory."  1  Harvard  was 
defeated. 


Of  extinct  college  customs  there  is  a  considerable 
and  not  uninteresting  list  —  Chip  Day,  Gravel  Day, 
Chestnut  Day,  May  Day,  the  Burial  of  Euclid,  the 
Freshman  Wake,  the  Shirt  Tail  Parade,  and  the  Cane 
Contest.  These  customs,  with  the  exception  of  the 
last  three,  which  the  faculty  summarily  suppressed, 
made  unnoticed  exits.  Some  of  them  rivalled  the  col- 
lege itself  in  antiquity  —  Chip  Day,  for  instance,  de- 
voted to  removing  the  debris  that  accumulated  about 
the  dormitories  during  the  winter  months,2  and 
Gravel  Day  set  apart  for  mending  the  "slimy"  side- 
walks which  offended  the  fastidious  author  of  "Dis- 
criptio  Gulielmensis."  A  lively  description  of  the 
1832  Chip  Day  appeared  in  the  "Adelphi"  and  the 
conjecture  that  it  may  have  been  written  by  William 
Lowndes  Yancey  probably  does  not  go  astray:  "At 
length  it  came,  —  and  a  beautiful  one  it  was.  The 
laughing  sun  shone  brightly  and  not  a  cloud  darkened 

1  E.  M.  Jerome  (1866),  Alumni  Review,  April,  1910.  Williams 
Quarterly,  August,  1865. 

*  "  May  I4th  [1796].  The  scholars  clean  the  ground  around  college 
thoroughly."  (Thomas  Robbins,  Diary,  I,  9.) 

298 


LOOKING  BEFORE  AND  AFTER 

the  azure  concave.  .  .  .  'Hurrah!  hurrah!'  echoed 
through  the  halls.  'We  have  the  day,  hurrah,  hurrah!' 
The  big,  disfiguring  piles  of  rubbish  were  quickly  re- 
moved. A  procession  followed  in  which  the  late  chip- 
men  became  a  martial  troop,  brooms  and  brushes 
served  as  flagstaff's,  and  sheets  and  handkerchiefs  as 
floating  pennons.  Our  quiet,  beautiful  town  of  the 
vale  has  not  seen  so  imposing  a  sight  this  many  a 
day."  1 

These  practical,  unromantic  customs  are  quite  in 
contrast  with  others,  like  the  Burial  of  Euclid  and 
the  Freshmen  Wake,  which  belong  to  a  later  time. 
In  general  they  disappeared  after  a  brief  and  often 
troubled  existence.  They  were  the  occasion  of  spec- 
tacular parades  and  doggerel  of  high  and  low  degree. 
For  example,  at  their  burial  of  Euclid  the  class  of  1852 
sang  this  unlamenting  ode:  — 

"Euclid  is  dead,  joyful  are  we. 
Come  let  us  sing,  be  merry  and  free. 
He 's  gone  at  last,  his  reign  is  o'er, 
Then  a  hy !  ha !  ha !  He  '11  bore  us  no  more. 

Euclid  was  borus, 

And  he  was  dry, 

He  used  to  floor  us, 

He  ought  to  die." 

The  list  of  abandoned  college  functions,  patriotic, 
social,  or  academic,  which  might  not  be  classified,  per- 
haps, as  college  customs,  is  a  considerable  one,  em- 
bracing Fourth  of  July  celebrations,  Junior,  Senior, 
and  Adelphic  Union  Exhibitions,  and  anniversaries  of 
temperance  and  anti-slavery  societies. 
1  Adelphi,  April  26,  1832. 
299 


WILLIAMS  COLLEGE 

In  the  earlier  Fourth  of  July  celebrations  college 
and  town  united.  Later  the  Sophomore  class  became 
responsible  for  a  proper  observance  of  the  day,  and 
their  programme  generally  comprised  the  reading  of 
the  Declaration  of  Independence,  an  oration  on  some 
appropriate  subject,  and  one  or  two  original  odes 
which  were  sung  by  the  students.  The  first  of  the 
earlier  celebrations  seems  to  have  been  in  1795  and 
the  following  account  of  it  appeared  in  the  "  Vermont 
Gazette" :- 

"At  twelve  o'clock  a  battalion  of  infantry  and  a 
company  of  cavalry,  with  a  numerous  body  of  citizens 
and  members  of  college,  walked  in  procession  from 
the  green  of  East  College  to  the  meeting-house.  A 
well-adapted  address  to  heaven  was  made  by  the 
Rev.  President  Fitch  and  an  elegant  and  patriotic 
oration  delivered  by  Mr.  Tutor  Dunbar,  which  was 
received  with  great  applause  by  the  audience."  Then 
followed  a  dinner  at  which  fifteen  "benevolent  and 
patriotic  toasts"  were  drunk,  the  series  concluding 
with  the  sentiment  —  "Williams  College,  may  it  long 
continue  to  be  the  seat  of  the  liberal  arts  and  sciences, 
of  religion  and  virtue." l 

The  last  and  most  elaborate  of  these  joint  celebra- 
tions, which  had  come  to  include  anniversaries  of 
local  temperance  and  anti-slavery  societies,  was  held 
in  1829.  Not  less  than  three  committees  participated 
in  the  preliminaries  —  one  composed  of  nine  citizens, 
another  of  six  Sophomores,  and  a  third  of  six  repre- 
sentatives of  the  college  at  large —  and  they  prepared 
an  ample  programme :  — 

1  Vermont  Gazette,  July  10,  1795. 
300 


LOOKING  BEFORE  AND  AFTER 

INDEPENDENCE 

The  fifty-third  anniversary  of  our  National  Independ- 
ence will  be  celebrated  in  an  appropriate  manner  at  the 
North  Village  in  Williamstown  on  the  4th  of  July  inst. 
The  procession  will  form  in  front  of  Major  Hickox's 
Hotel  —  precisely  at  half  past  nine  A.M.  under  the  direc- 
tion of  Major  A.  Hanson,  Marshal,  and  Mr.  S.  Johnson, 
Assistant  Marshal.  The  procession  will  move  to  the 
New  Chapel  [Griffin  Hall]  where  the  usual  Fourth  of 
July  oration  from  the  Sophomore  class  will  be  delivered 
by  Mr.  William  Rankin,  Jr.  (1831).  The  procession  will 
reform  in  front  of  the  Chapel  at  half  past  ten  and  pro- 
ceed to  the  Meeting  House  where  an  Oration  will  be 
delivered  by  Daniel  N.  Dewey,  Esq.,  after  which  an 
address  will  be  delivered  before  The  ["Old  Constitution  "] 
Temperance  Society  by  Mr.  Lowell  Smith  (1829)  of 
Williams  College. 

A  dinner  will  be  provided  by  Major  Hickox. 

After  the  dinner  the  procession  will  reform  in  front  of 
the  hotel  and  proceed  as  before  to  the  New  Chapel  where 
an  Oration  will  be  pronounced  by  Mr.  Simeon  H.  Cal- 
houn  [1829]  which  will  be  followed  by  an  address  by  Mr. 
G.  B.  Kellogg  [1829]  to  the  Anti-Slavery  Society  of 
Williams  College.  The  services  of  the  day  will  close  by 
an  Address  to  The  [New]  Temperance  Society  in  Williams 
College  by  Mr.  S.  B.  Morley  [1829]. 

The  inhabitants  of  adjacent  towns  are  respectfully 
invited  to  join  in  the  celebration.  Seats  will  be  particu- 
larly reserved  for  the  ladies  and  a  full  band  of  music  will 
attend  on  the  occasion.1 

Since  three   temperance  organizations  —  the  col- 
lege furnishing  two  of  them  and  the  village  one  — 
took  part  in  the  anniversary,  the  dinner  committee 
allowed,  and  very  properly,  "no  other  liquor  than 
1  American  Advocate,  July  I,  1829. 
301 


WILLIAMS  COLLEGE 

cider  and  water  ...  on  the  table."  The  dinner  com- 
mittee had  reason  to  be  gratified  with  the  results  of 
their  prohibitory  policy.  "Only  one  man  was  seen 
intoxicated  and  he  came  from  a  distance  to  show  that 
he  was  opposed  to  temperance  societies.  Some  time 
before  sunset  the  people  repaired  to  their  own  homes 
and  there  was  no  more  appearance  of  a  celebration  in 
our  streets  at  7  o'clock  than  there  is  on  the  Sabbath 
two  hours  after  meeting/' l 

At  their  annual  meeting  in  1910  the  alumni  of  the 
college  sent  the  Sophomore  orator  of  1829,  William 
Rankin,  an  illuminated  scroll  containing  their  con- 
gratulations on  his  one  hundredth  birthday.2  He 
died  in  1912  —  the  oldest  college  graduate  in  the 
country. 

With  the  exception  of  Commencement  none  of  the 
surviving  academic  functions  have  any  considerable 
antiquity.  The  oldest  of  them  —  the  Jackson  Festi- 
val, a  birthday  celebration  in  honor  of  the  founder  — 
was  established  in  i857,3  by  Nathan  Jackson,  donor 
of  the  hall  which  bore  his  name.  In  the  early  years 
this  festival  consisted  of  a  supper  at  the  village  hotel, 
after  which  there  were  speeches  by  members  of  the 
faculty  and  representatives  of  the  four  college  classes. 
Occasionally  something  happened  that  gave  unex- 
pected variety  to  the  programme.  An  event  of  this 
kind  occurred  at  the  Festival  of  1858.  The  exercises 
proceeded  smoothly  and  according  to  schedule  until 
the  spokesman  for  the  Senior  class  was  half  through 
his  address  when  he  fell  to  the  floor  in  a  dead  swoon. 

*.  American  Advocate,  July  8,  1829.      2  Gulielmensian,  1914,  p.  30. 
3  Williams  Quarterly,  March,  1857,  p.  287. 

302 


LOOKING  BEFORE  AND  AFTER 

His  sudden  collapse  naturally  created  a  good  deal  of 
confusion.  "With  the  presence  of  mind  usually  dis- 
played on  such  occasions  a  crowd  was  formed  which 
made  it  almost  impossible  for  a  well  man  to  breathe. 
One  Sophomore  fainted  and  a  good  many  more  would 
have  made  less  trouble  if  they  had  fainted  too.  .  .  . 
Our  friend  recovered  sufficiently  to  leave  the  room  — 
his  temper  unruffled  ...  by  the  novel  proceedings " 
and  the  hot  coffee  "  thrown  in  his  face  by  some  enthu- 
siastic person  who  had  joined  in  the  general  effort  to 
revive  him."  l 

While  Class  Day,  established  in  1861,  continues  to 
be  very  much  what  it  was  at  first,  great  changes  and 
transformations  appear  in  the  processes  of  Commence- 
ment. On  the  forenoon  of  the  first  —  Wednesday, 
September  2,  1795, —  a  slender  procession  of  academy 
boys,  college  students,  instructors,  Trustees,  and  vis- 
itors formed  at  West  College  and  marched  to  the 
"scandalous"  village  meeting-house  at  the  head  of 
Main  Street,  where  the  graduating  exercises  were 
held.  In  1798  a  new  meeting-house,  built  on  the  site 
of  the  old  one,  was  finished  and  in  it  sixty-eight  suc- 
cessive Commencements  were  held.  From  almost 
unnoticed  beginnings  they  came  to  be  a  sort  of 
Northern  Berkshire  gala  occasion.  In  the  third  dec- 
ade of  the  last  century  it  is  said  that  farmers  laid 
their  plans  "  to  finish  haying "  in  time  to  attend  them.2 
These  farmers  and  their  friends  were  out  in  force,  for 
example,  at  the  Commencement  of  1837  —  the  first 
in  the  administration  of  Mark  Hopkins.  Edward 

1  Williams  Quarterly,  June,  1858. 

*  Danforth,  Boyhood  Reminiscences,  42. 

303 


WILLIAMS  COLLEGE 

Everett,  Governor  of  Massachusetts,  delivered  an 
oration  before  the  Adelphic  Union  on  that  occasion. 
A  chief  magistrate  of  the  State  had  never  been  in 
attendance  before  and  his  presence  naturally  awak- 
ened general  interest  throughout  the  neighborhood. 
Entertained  by  President  Hopkins  at  a  social  party 
the  evening  preceding  Commencement,  the  Governor 
discovered  that  "half  of  the  country  had  come  in," 
and  that  the  elaborate,  scholastic  oration  prepared 
for  the  occasion  would  be  out  of  place.  Accordingly 
it  was  supplanted  by,  or  at  least  transformed  into,  an 
address  on  the  "'  Relations  of  Frontier  Towns  to  the 
History  of  the  World/  ...  As  the  assembly  paraded 
out  of  the  church  Clifford  [a  member  of  the  Governor's 
staff]  met  in  the  porch  one  of  the  fine  old  Berkshire 
sachems,  a  gentleman  of  position  and  cultivation.  .  .  . 
Clifford  said  to  him,  'And  how  do  you  like  our 
Governor?'  'Like  him?  I  am  only  thinking  what  a 
fool  I  am.  I  talked  to  him  an  hour  at  the  President's 
party,  and  by  Jove  I  was  simply  telling  him  things  he 
knew  better  than  I  do.'  The  simple  truth  was  that 
.  .  .  the  Governor  had  been  pumping  the  Berkshire 
man  for  local  detail  which  the  next  morning  had  been 
reflected  on  the  Berkshire  audience." l 

Nathaniel  Hawthorne,  happening  to  be  in  North 
Adams  during  the  next  anniversary,  drove  over  to 
Williamstown  and  found  the  village  thronged  with 
people  from  the  vicinity,  who  came  thither  in  all 

1  Hale,  Memories  of  a  Hundred  Years,  n,  14-16.  Governor  Everett 
closed  his  address  with  a  tribute  to  Ephraim  Williams  that  "  drew  tears 
from  many  eyes."  (New  York  Observer,  August  26,  1837.)  The  published 
oration  seems  to  be  the  original  version  —  not  the  extemporized  and 
crammed  version  which  astonished  the  old  Berkshire  sachem. 

304 


LOOKING  BEFORE  AND  AFTER 

kinds  of  vehicles  —  buggies,  barouches,  and  chaises. 
In  the  open  spaces  back  of  the  big  white  meeting- 
house where  the  orthodox  exercises  of  the  day  were 
proceeding  with  a  programme  of  twenty-two  orations, 
he  found  another  and  larger  audience  listening  to 
the  unconventional  eloquence  of  pedlers,  hucksters, 
hawkers,  and  venders  of  divers  sorts.  One  of  them, 
who  sold  his  wares  at  auction,  amused  Hawthorne  so 
much  by  his  lively  tongue  and  original  elocution  — 
"a  queer,  humorous  recitative"  —  that  he  could  have 
stood  and  listened  to  him  all  day.  Another  man  in  the 
crowd  caught  his  attention  —  "a  round-shouldered, 
hulky,  ill-hung  devil"  by  the  name  of  Randall,  who 
was  the  better  or  worse  for  liquor  and  made  no  little 
disturbance.  Indeed,  the  out-of-doors  attractions 
were  so  great  that  apparently  Hawthorne  did  not  go 
inside  the  church.  This  old  order  has  changed.  Gone 
are  the  booths,  the  hucksters,  the  auctioneers,  and  the 
"  ill-hung  devils."  If  Nathaniel  Hawthorne  could 
have  attended  the  Commencement  of  1916,  held  in 
the  splendid  audience  room  of  Grace  Hall  and  with 
elaborate  academic  ceremonial,  he  would  have  found 
himself  in  a  Williamstown  world  which  had  not  been 
discovered  in  1838. 

The  miscellaneous  crowd  that  attracted  Hawthorne 
was  mostly  composed  of  relative  strangers  drawn  to 
the  campus  for  the  day.  But  other  singular  folk  there 
were,  not  less  interesting,  who  had  a  more  permanent 
connection  with  it  and  contributed  a  distinct  touch 
of  local  color.  These  now  extinct  folk  may  properly 
be  called  "characters,"  though  of  a  type  unknown  to 
Theophrastus  or  Sir  Thomas  Overbury.  First  in  the 

305 


WILLIAMS  COLLEGE 

brief  list  is  Thomas  Cox,  "tall,  lank,  withered,"1 
who  entered  upon  his  career  as  "  professor  of  dust  and 
ashes"  in  1817  and  continued  it  half  a  century.  A 
simple,  kindly,  unpretending  man,  content  and  faith- 
ful in  his  humble  duties,  he  appealed  to  the  affections 
rather  than  to  the  laughter  of  Williams  students. 

Another  "character"  was  an  old  negro  with  a 
phenomenally  thick  skull.  His  specialty  lay  in  bunt- 
ing boards,  planks,  or  barrels  for  a  small  considera- 
tion. Hence  he  became  known  as  "Abe  Bunter," 
though  his  real  name  was  something  else.  Probably 
no  more  formidable  battering-ram  of  this  species  could 
be  found  anywhere.  A  queer,  outre,  barbaric  figure, 
with  his  one  tremendous  "talent,"  he  haunted  the 
campus  for  a  long  series  of  years. 

The  most  distinguished  member  of  this  vanished 
community  was  "Bill"  Pratt,  "the  saw-buck  phi- 
losopher." His  fame  grew  out  of  the  singular  oratory 
which  on  occasion  lent  variety  to  the  prosaic  routine 
of  his  customary  vocation  —  sawing  wood  and  black- 
ing stoves.  This  oratory  was  a  jargon  of  wild,  reso- 
nant, elementary  nonsense,  streaked  with  occasional 
shrewdness  of  observation  and  accentuated  here  and 
there  by  a  curious  yell  of  his  own  invention.  "Bill" 
won  a  place,  not  only  in  the  ephemeral  talk  of  the 
campus,  but  in  the  pages  of  the  "Quarterly"  and 
the  "Proceedings"  of  Alumni  Associations.  What  is 
more,  two  graduates  —  John  Sheridan  Zelie  (1887) 
and  Carroll  Perry  (1890) — wrote  a  book  about  him.2 

1  Benjamin,  Life  and  Adventures  of  a  Free  Lance,  148. 

2  "  A  new  edition  with  new  matter,"  edited  by  Talcott  Miner  Banks 
(1890),  was  published  in  1915.   See  Appendix  IX. 

306 


LOOKING  BEFORE  AND  AFTER 

VI 

Williams  undergraduate  periodicals  began  with  the 
"Adelphi,"  a  semi-monthly  "published  by  Ridley 
Bannister  nearly  opposite  .  .  .  West  College,"  the 
first  number  appearing  August  18,  1831,  and  the 
last  July  9,  1832.  It  contained  six  pages  of  reading 
matter  —  four  of  them  devoted  to  original  essays  and 
selections  from  various  authors,  and  the  remainder  to 
poetry  and  news  items.  Gibbon's  "  Decline  and  Fall 
of  Rome/'  the  philosophy  of  novel-reading,  "Alas, 
Poor  Yorick,"  Bulwer's  works,  the  poems  of  Whittier, 
Willis,  Bryant,  Henry  Kirke  White,  and  Sir  Walter 
Scott  are  some  of  the  topics  discussed  in  the  original 
essays.  The  young  men  who  undertook  this  venture 
in  college  journalism  —  William  Lowndes  Yancey  is 
said  to  have  been  a  leading  spirit  among  them  —  did 
their  work  surprisingly  well,  whether  we  consider  it 
from  the  standpoint  of  style  or  substance. 

Twelve  years  passed  before  the  "Adelphi"  had  a 
successor.  In  July,  1844,  the  publication  of  the 
"Williams  Monthly  Miscellany"  was  begun  with  an 
accompaniment  of  unnecessary  apologies.  "If  our 
productions  are  crude,"  said  the  editors,  "so  the 
authors  are  in  a  measure  (large  or  small)." x  This  ven- 
ture survived  scarcely  longer  than  its  predecessor. 
It  suspended  publication  after  one  number  of  the 
second  volume  had  been  issued. 

A  third  periodical,  the  "Williams  Quarterly,"  con- 
ducted by  an  editorial  board  of  five  Seniors,  and  con- 
taining about  a  hundred  pages  of  reading  matter, 

1  Williams  Miscellany,  i,  2. 
307 


WILLIAMS  COLLEGE 

appeared  in  1853,  and  came  to  an  end  in  1872.  Digni- 
fied, serious,  inclining  perhaps  to  sacrifice  form  to 
substance,  yet  occasionally  brilliant,  the  old  "  Quar- 
terly" was  a  worthy  literary  exponent  of  the  last  half 
of  the  Mark  Hopkins  era.1 

Also  in  1853  the  Sophomore  class  undertook  the 
publication  of  an  annual,  the  "  Williams  College 
Index."  Besides  reproducing  the  official  catalogue 
it  contained  considerable  miscellaneous  information, 
such  as  the  programmes  of  Adelphic  Union  Exhibi- 
tions and  the  names  of  students  who  belonged  to  the 
debating  societies,  the  fraternities,  and  other  organi- 
zations. In  1857  the  name  of  the  annual  was  changed 
to  the  "Gulielmensian,"  and  the  Junior  class  as- 
sumed the  responsibilities  of  publication.  Little 
change  in  its  general  character  and  make-up  occurred 
until  1871  when  illustrations  began  to  appear.  Then 
followed  what  is  known  in  the  slang  of  the  campus  as 
"  grinds."  While  the  editors  might  solemnly  announce 
that  it  would  be  "  supremely  ridiculous  to  take  offence 
at  anything  in  these  pages," 2  the  professors  and  stu- 
dents who  happened  to  have  been  "  roasted  "  were  apt 
to  take  a  different  view  of  the  subject.  In  1910  this 
feature  of  the  annual  was  definitely  abandoned,  since, 
in  the  judgment  of  the  editors,  a  recently  established 
monthly,  the  "Purple  Cow,"  had  "proved  itself  well 
able  to  fill  the  place  of  the  so-called  Gull  humor.  .  .  . 
We  yield  our  copyright  on  laughter." 

The  list  of  subsequent  papers  and  magazines  com- 
prises the  "  Vidette,"  1867-75,  published  every  other 

1  McClure,  American  College  Journalism,  40. 
-  2  Gulielmensian,  xxi,  5. 
308 


LOOKING  BEFORE  AND  AFTER 

week  and  devoted  mainly  to  college  news;  the  "Wil- 
liams Review,"  1870-74,  which  appeared  once  in 
three  weeks  and  gave  considerable  space  to  essays  and 
discussions ;  the  "Athenaeum,"  1874-85,  a  monthly ;  the 
"Argo,"  1882-85,  a  fortnightly;  and  the  "Weekly/1 
1887-1904.  Current  publications  in  1916  were  the 
"Literary  Monthly,"  1885-;  the  "Record,"  1904-,  a 
semi- weekly  which  became  a  tri- weekly  in  1912;  the 
"Purple  Cow,"  1907-,  a  monthly;  and  the  "Williams 
Alumni  Review,"  1909-,  issued  five  times  a  year. 

It  is  not  proposed  "to  pick  and  choose  for  com- 
mendation" among  these  undergraduate  publica- 
tions. They  are,  and  in  the  nature  of  the  case  must 
be,  essentially  tentative  and  ephemeral.  Some  of  the 
verse,  however,  is  distinctly  above  the  average.  The 
editors  of  "A  Williams  Anthology,"  published  in 
1910,  rated  it  for  the  last  six  years  "as  second  to  none 
...  in  the  inter-collegiate  press."  An  earlier  observer, 
"a  well-known  historian  and  critic  of  literature,"  did 
not  hesitate  to  say  that  Williams  and  Dartmouth 
were  then  writing  better  verse  than  Oxford  and 
Cambridge.1 

VII 

Renan  thought  it  was  the  scenic  grandeur  of  Mount 
Sinai  that  converted  "the  Jewish  people  from  Egyp- 
tian idolaters  to  reverent  monotheists." 2  In  the  pres- 

1  Gulielmensian,  xxxix,  24  (1895).    Alfred  Noyes  made  a  similar 
claim  twenty  years  later  for  undergraduate  verse  at  Princeton.    (The 
Nation,  New  York,  April  13,  1916.)    Possibly  Gilbert  Murray  may  be 
right  in  saying  that  a  spirit  of  satiety  has  made  the  English  univer- 
sities "an  evil  seed-ground  for  poetry."   (Oxford  Poetry,  1910-13,  xx.) 

2  G.  Stanley  Hall  (1867),  Gulielmensian,  XLI,  7. 

309 


WILLIAMS  COLLEGE 

ent  era,  when  the  drift  of  educational  theories  seems 
to  be  against  the  country  and  in  favor  of  the  town  as 
the  seat  of  a  college,  the  question  is  at  least  pertinent 
—  What  has  the  landscape  of  Northern  Berkshire 
done  for  Williams  students?  It  should  be  remembered 
in  considering  this  question  that  there  was  no  general 
recognition  of  the  "physical  charm"  of  the  region 
until  a  comparatively  recent  period.  The  limitations, 
struggles,  and  hardships  of  pioneer  life  put  the 
aesthetic  sensibilities  out  of  tune.  Did  the  founder 
appreciate  the  glories  of  mountain  and  valley  in  West 
Township?  We  cannot  tell,  but  we  know  that  he  pos- 
sessed a  copy  of  La  Pluche's  "Nature  Displayed,"  in 
seven  volumes.  These  volumes  are  a  series  of  dia- 
logues on  natural  history,  —  on  forests,  meadows, 
pastures,  mountains,  rivers,  and  a  great  variety  of 
kindred  subjects,  —  and  the  fact  that  he  had  them  is 
significant. 

So  far  as  we  can  learn  from  the  scanty  remains 
of  their  prose  and  verse — from  "The  Fatal  Error"  of 
Aaron  Leland  and  the  "Descriptio  Gulielmopolis " 
of  William  Cullen  Bryant — the  earlier  generations  of 
students  took  little  note  of  the  aesthetic  features  of 
their  environment.  Nor  does  any  trace  of  them  ap- 
pear in  the  controversy  over  the  question  of  removing 
the  institution  to  Northampton.  And  the  enthusiasm 
awakened  by  the  lectures  of  Amos  Eaton  expended 
itself  upon  the  botany  and  geology  of  the  region,  and 
without  touching  the  canons  of  landscape  beauty. 

The  Rev.  Dr.  Samuel  Hanson  Cox,  in  a  letter  to 
the  "  New  York  Evangelist,"  attributed  the  aesthetic 
awakening,  at  least  so  far  as  college  circles  were  con- 

310 


LOOKING  BEFORE  AND  AFTER 

cerned,  to  the  influence  of  President  Griffin.  "His 
mind,"  said  the  former,  "had  much  of  native  poetry 
as  well  as  eloquence,"  and  he  it  was  who  discovered 
for  the  people  of  Williamstown  "the  picturesque  and 
classic  glories  of  their  gorgeous  valley,  with  its  mighty 
mountains  .  .  .  and  all  their  young  family  of  little 
hills,  that  inspire  the  scholar,  wake  the  poet  and  al- 
most educate  the  Freshman  and  the  Sophomore  half 
way  to  his  diploma.  .  .  .  Griffin  set  that  orb  of  senti- 
ment in  motion."  1  To  him  the  Williamstown  land- 
scape was  a  constant  and  intense  delight.  A  favor- 
ite horseback  trip  of  his  lay  up  Main  Street,  past 
the  Congregational  Meeting-House,  across  Hemlock 
Brook,  and  half  a  mile  westward.  "Well  do  I  remem- 
ber," Judge  Keyes  Danforth  relates  in  his  "Reminis- 
cences," "his  black  horse  with  a  white  stripe  in  the 
face.  He  used  to  ride  up  to  the  home  of  my  boyhood 
and  say,  '  Sonny,  please  open  that  gate  so  that  I  can 
ride  to  the  top  of  the  hill  and  get  the  view.' " 2  And 
this  view  from  the  top  of  the  hill,  which  embraced  the 
mountain  ranges  from  Greylock  to  the  Dome  and  the 
picturesque  valley  they  enclose,  with  the  village  of 
Williamstown  in  the  foreground  and  glimpses  of  "the 
peaceful  river ' '  and  shadowy  towns  beyond,  he  thought 
the  most  beautiful  in  the  world. 

This  nature  cult  of  the  third  administration  had 
two  definite,  tangible  consequences.  One  of  them  was 
Mountain  Day,  the  only  existing  college  custom  of 
any  considerable  antiquity.  When  the  new  holiday 
began  is  uncertain,  but  it  must  have  been  previous  to 

1  The  Evangelist,  August  14,  1856. 

1  Danforth,  Boyhood  Reminiscences,  168. 


WILLIAMS  COLLEGE 

1827,  since  in  President  Griffin's  manuscript  ''Journal 
Containing  the  Code  of  Common  Law"  for  that  year 
the  following  memorandum  appears:  "About  the 
24th  of  June  a  day  to  go  upon  the  mountain." 

Another  consequence  was  the  construction,  on  the 
1 2th  of  May,  1830,  of  a  bridle  path  to  the  top  of 
Greylock.  A  correspondent  sent  an  account  of  the 
expedition  to  the  "American  Advocate":  — 

"About  5  o'clock  in  the  morning  there  was  a  gen- 
eral mustering  of  all  who  felt  a  disposition  to  assist  in 
the  accomplishment  of  what  some  were  pleased  to 
call  'a  visionary  scheme.'  The  students  of  the  college, 
by  leave  of  the  faculty,  equipped  themselves  with  .  .  . 
axes,  bush-hooks,  crow-bars,  hoes  and  dinner  bas- 
kets. .  .  .  The  company,  to  the  number  at  least  of  a 
hundred,  the  students  forming  a  majority,  arrived  at 
9  o'clock  at  Mr.  Bacon's,  a  short  distance  south  of 
what  is  called  the  'Hopper.'  ...  All  hands  [then]  set 
about  the  work  with  determined  vigor.  Some  plied 
the  axe,  felling  the  larger  timber  —  such  as  could  not 
be  well  avoided  without  changing  too  much  the  direc- 
tion of  the  route  —  others  assisted  in  grubbing  up 
the  underbrush  &c  and  at  about  1 1  o'clock  the  whole 
company  arrived  at  ...  the  pinnacle  of  Saddle  Moun- 
tain [Greylock],  having  cut  a  road  through  the  woods 
three  miles  in  length  and  passable  for  travellers  on 
horseback.  ...  By  the  way  't  was  not  a  little  pleasing 
to  witness  the  labors  of  the  students,  as  they  sweat 
and  tugged  at  the  huge  trunks  of  trees,  some  com- 
plaining of  blistered  hands,  others  of  torn  pantaloons 
and  scratched  shins  ...  as  they  clambered  along 
through  the  thicket,  over  the  scraggy  hemlocks  blown 

312 


LOOKING  BEFORE  AND  AFTER 

down  by  the  wind  perhaps  half  a  century  ago.  .  .  . 
The  party  commenced  building  an  observatory  on  the 
pinnacle  with  the  base  about  twenty-five  feet  square, 
and  before  leaving  they  had  raised  it  twelve  feet.  It  is 
contemplated  to  carry  it  forty  or  fifty  feet  higher."  l 

The  observatory  was  completed  and  dedicated 
May  26,  when  "about  one  hundred  citizens  of  this 
town  visited  the  summit  of  Saddle  Mountain*'  and 
Dr.  Henry  Lyman  Sabin  delivered  "a  spirited  and 
eloquent  address.'*2  -  •  •  -  ra  •••  *- 

Traces  of  the  new  landscape  gospel  also  began  to 
appear  in  publications  which  had  no  official  connec- 
tion with  the  college.  During  the  summer  of  1829  "  A 
History  of  the  County  of  Berkshire  by  Gentlemen  of 
the  County  Clergymen  and  Laymen,"  was  published 
under  the  editorial  supervision  of  the  Rev.  Dr.  David 
Dudley  Field,  of  Stockbridge.  Among  these  "Gentle- 
men," twenty-four  in  number,  were  two  members  of 
the  faculty.  Ebenezer  Kellogg  wrote  the  sketch  of 
Williamstown,  painstaking  and  valuable,  but  unre- 
sponsive to  the  beauty  of  its  situation.  Chester  Dewey 
contributed  "A  General  View  of  the  County,"  which 
comprises  one  hundred  and  ninety-seven  of  the  four 
hundred  and  sixty-eight  pages  in  the  book.  As  one 
might  expect,  special  attention  is  paid  to  natural  his- 
tory in  his  "  View,"  -  forty- two  pages  of  it  being  de- 
voted to  a  catalogue  of  plants,  —  but  the  attractions 
of  the  landscape  are  not  wholly  neglected.  Three  other 
contributors  —  the  editor,  the  Rev.  Edwin  Dwight, 
of  Richmond,  and  the  Rev.  Dr.  Shepard,  of  Lenox  — 
had  something  pleasant  to  say  about  the  scenery. 

1  American  Advocate,  May  19,  1830.        *  Ibid.,  June  2,  1830. 

313 


WILLIAMS  COLLEGE 

It  is  not  to  be  supposed  that  Edward  Dorr  Griffin, 
whose  residence  at  Williamstown  began  in  1821,  had 
no  predecessors  in  appreciation  of  Berkshire  scenery. 
One  of  the  earliest  among  them  was  a  young  lady  — 
Miss  Eliza  S.  Morton,  afterwards  Mrs.  Josiah  Quincy 
—  who  visited  Madam  Dwight 1  at  Stockbridge  in 
1786.  "When,  on  the  morning  after  our  arrival,"  she 
wrote,  "the  window-shutters  were  opened,  the  Val- 
ley of  the  Housatonic  .  .  .  seemed  to  my  enchanted 
vision  like  a  fairy-land.  I  exclaimed,  'O  Madam 
Dwight !  it  looks  like  the  Happy  Valley  of  Abyssinia. 
There  is  the  river  and  there  are  the  mountains  on 
every  side.  Why  did  you  never  tell  me  of  this  beauti- 
ful view/  My  friend  seemed  surprised  at  my  enthu- 
siasm/'2 

The  itinerary  of  President  Timothy  Dwight's 
famous  vacation  "  Travels "  included  Williamstown. 
Accompanied  by  Ebenezer  Fitch  and  Israel  Jones,  a 
Trustee  of  the  college,  he  made  the  ascent  of  Grey- 
lock  "Tuesday  October  fifteenth/'  1799.  "When  I 
proposed  this  ride  ...  I  was  astonished  to  learn  that 
the  only  person  here  who  had  been  known  to  ascend 
this  mountain  was  Mr.  [Daniel]  Nfoble]  .  .  .  and  that 
even  he  had  ascended  it  to  accompany  a  stranger  .  .  . 
whose  curiosity  had  led  him  to  undertake  the  enter- 

1  Madam  Dwight,  nee  Abigail  Williams,  married  Joseph  Dwight  after 
the  death  of  her  first  husband,  Rev.  John  Sergeant.    In  1 786  she  was ' '  up- 
wards of  sixty  years  of  age,  tall  and  erect,  dignified,  precise  in  manner, 
yet  benevolent  and  pleasing.  Her  dress  of  rich  silk,  a  high-crowned  cap 
with  plaited  border  and  a  watch  ...  all  marked  the  gentlewoman  and 
inspired  respect.   She  was  a  new  study  to  me  and  realized  my  ideas  of 
Mrs.  Shirley  in  Sir  Charles  Grandison."  (Quoted  in  Life  and  Letters  of 
Catharine  M.  Sedgwick,  16.) 

2  Memoir  of  Eliza  S.  M.  Quincy,  47. 


LOOKING  BEFORE  AND  AFTER 

prise. "  The  trip  was  accomplished  without  much 
difficulty.  On  the  summit  the  excursionists  found  a 
growth  of  trees  so  thick  and  tall  that  it  completely 
shut  out  the  prospect.  If  they  were  to  get  a  view  of 
the  landscape,  nothing  remained  for  them  "but  to 
climb  to  their  tops"  -a  feat  which  the  two  college 
Presidents  and  the  college  Trustee  successfully  ac- 
complished. "The  view,"  in  the  words  of  President 
Dwight,  "is  immense  and  of  amazing  grandeur.  .  .  . 
The  village  of  Williamstown  shrunk  to  the  size  of  a 
farm ;  and  its  houses,  churches  and  colleges  appeared 
like  the  habitations  of  martins  and  wrens."  l 

Three  years  afterward  another  traveller,  the  Rev. 
John  Taylor,  set  out  from  Deerfield  on  a  horseback 
trip  to  Central  New  York.  "When  I  came  to  ye  west 
side  of  ye  [Hoosac]  mountain,"  he  tells  us  in  his  diary, 
"  I  found  before  I  began  to  descend  the  most  sublime 
prospect  I  had  ever  seen.  The  high  mountains  .  .  . 
the  scattered  fields  upon  those  mountains  —  the 
blooming  appearance  of  vegetation  —  and  the  valleys 
below  filled  with  houses  —  ...  sunk  so  low  as  to  be 
almost  invisible  .  .  .  led  me  into  a  train  of  elevated 
and  agreeable  reflections." 2 

Among  the  undergraduates  of  his  time  President 
Griffin  had  two  enthusiastic  disciples.  One  of  them 
was  Albert  Hopkins.  A  touching  illustration  of  his 
sympathy  and  communion  with  the  changeful  moods 
of  earth  and  sky  is  found  in  a  letter  which  he  wrote 
January  2,  1866,  giving  an  account  of  the  interment 
at  Williamstown  of  the  remains  of  his  son  killed  in  the 

1  Dwight,  Travels,  m,  241,  242,  244,  245. 

2  Documentary  History  of  the  State  of  New  York,  in,  684. 

315 


WILLIAMS  COLLEGE 

Civil  War.  "The  night  before  there  was  every  appear- 
ance of  a  heavy  .  .  .  storm.  But  Sabbath  morning  it 
was  calm.  As  I  went  to  church  I  noticed  that  the  sun 
rested  on  the  Vermont  mountains  .  .  .  though  with  a 
mellowed  light  as  though  a  veil  had  been  thrown  over 
them.  In  the  after  part  of  the  day  the  open  sky 
had  spread  southward  —  so  that  the  interment  took 
place  when  the  air  was  as  mild  and  serene  as  spring, 
just  as  the  last  sun  of  the  year  was  sinking  toward  the 
mountains."  l 

The  other  disciple,  David  Dudley  Field,  was 
scarcely  less  sensitive  to  the  moods  and  messages  of 
the  Berkshire  Hills.  "  I  shall  never  cease  to  congratu- 
late myself,"  he  said  in  an  oration  before  the  Adelphic 
Union  on  the  fiftieth  anniversary  of  his  graduation, 
"that  my  sense  of  beauty  was  trained  within  the 
circle  of  these  mountains;  that  the  evening  light 
gilded  for  my  eyes  the  sides  of  Greylock;  that  I  saw 
at  noon  the  sun  standing  over  this  endless  variety  of 
wood,  meadow  and  stream;  that  the  evening  twilight 
heightened  while  it  softened  the  beauty  of  the  noon; 
and  that,  when  I  looked  from  my  window  into  the 
moonlight  it  lay  like  a  transparent,  celestial  robe  upon 
the  sleeping  valley  and  the  waking  hills."2 

During  the  fourth  and  fifth  decades  of  the  last  cen- 
tury began  what  may  be  called  the  second  period  of 
nature-worship  at  Williams.  Among  the  disciples  of 
the  cult  in  that  period  were  Paul  Ansel  Chadbourne, 
John  Bascom,  David  Coit  Scudder,  James  Abram 
Garfield,  Cyrus  Morris  Dodd,  Washington  Gladden, 

1  Prentiss,  Life  and  Letters  of  Elizabeth  Prentiss,  229. 

8  Field,  Speeches,  Arguments,  and  Miscellaneous  Papers,  II,  302. 

316 


LOOKING  BEFORE  AND  AFTER 

and  George  Lansing  Raymond.  We  can  reproduce  in 
these  pages  the  words  of  only  two  or  three  of  these 
enthusiasts.  "When  I  went  to  college/1  said  John 
Bascom,  "I  met  for  the  first  time  with  mountain 
scenery  and  it  has  yielded  to  me  ...  the  most  skil- 
fully concocted  cup  of  physical  and  spiritual  pleasures 
that  I  have  anywhere  found  in  life."  1 

Washington  Gladden  wrote  for  the  "  Williams 
Weekly"  in  1893  an  account  of  the  beginning  of  his 
acquaintance  with  the  Berkshire  landscape:  — 

"I  shall  never  forget  that  evening  when  I  first 
entered  Williamstown,  riding  on  the  top  of  the  North 
Adams  stage.  The  September  rains  had  been  abun- 
dant and  the  meadows  and  slopes  were  at  their  green- 
est; the  atmosphere  was  as  nearly  transparent  as  we 
are  apt  to  see  it;  the  sun  was  just  making  behind 
the  Taconics,  and  the  shadows  were  creeping  up  the 
slopes  of  Williams  and  Prospect;  as  we  paused  on 
the  little  hill  beyond  Blackinton  the  outlines  of  the 
Saddle  were  defined  against  a  sky  as  rich  and  deep  as 
ever  looked  down  on  Naples  or  Palermo.  ...  To  a 
boy  who  had  seen  few  mountains  that  hour  was  a 
revelation."2 

This  revelation  was  at  the  beginning  of  Washington 
Gladden's  college  course.  Near  the  close  of  it  another 
flashed  upon  him.  "One  winter  morning  walking 
down  Bee  Hill,"  he  said,  "  the  lilt  of  the  chorus  of  'The 
Mountains'  came  to  me.  I  had  a  little  music  paper  in 
my  room  in  the  village  and  on  my  arrival  I  wrote 
down  the  notes  and  cast  about  for  words  to  fit  them 

1  Things  Learned  by  Living,  44,  45. 

*  Williams  Weekly,  Centennial  Number,  1893. 

317 


WILLIAMS  COLLEGE 

and  the  refrain  'The  Mountains,  the  Mountains'  sug- 
gested itself.  I  wrote  the  melody  of  the  stanza  next 
and  fitted  the  words  to  it: 1 

"The  mountains,  the  mountains!  we  greet  them  with  a  song! 
Whose  echoes,  rebounding  their  woodland  heights  along, 
Shall  mingle  with  anthems  that  winds  and  fountains  sing, 
Till  hill  and  valley  gaily,  gaily  ring." 

VIII 

Though  Williams,  unlike  the  pre-Revolutionary 
colleges  of  New  England,  had  a  secular  origin,  it  is 
not  to  be  supposed  that  the  first  President  and  the 
first  Trustees  were  out  of  sympathy  with  current  the- 
ories about  the  place  of  theology  in  any  properly  con- 
stituted scheme  of  collegiate  education.  On  the  con- 
trary, they  looked  upon  it  as  a  matter  of  the  gravest 
importance.  A  controversy  which  broke  out  in  the 
Board  at  the  meeting,  September  7,  1796,  over  the 
retention  of  the  Rev.  Dr.  Samuel  Hopkins'  "  System 
of  Doctrine"  as  a  textbook,  would  seem  to  leave  no 
doubt  on  the  point.  This  textbook  —  a  "  new  school " 
treatise  of  remarkable  intellectual  vigor  and  independ- 
ence, published  in  1793  —  the  Trustees,  by  a  vote  of 
nine  to  six,  "expunged,"  and  put  in  its  place  the  more 
conservative  and  orthodox  "Lectures"  of  Philip 
Doddridge.  The  nine  opponents  of  the  "System" 
were  all  laymen  and  the  six  defenders  all  clergymen. 
Two  years  later  the  latter  renewed  the  fight  and 
failed  again.  "The  corporation  had  a  hard  struggle," 
wrote  Thomas  Robbins  in  his  diary  September  7, 
1798,  "to  reintroduce  Dr.  Hopkins'  system  as  2, 
1  Gladden,  Recollections,  81. 
318 


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LOOKING  BEFORE  AND  AFTER 

classic,  but  could  not  do  it."1  President  Fitch  was 
more  successful  with  another  theological  textbook  — 
Vincent  on  the  Catechism  —  which  he  adopted  from 
the  Yale  curriculum,  and  it  was  retained  in  the 
course  of  study  until  1886,  a  period  of  ninety-three 
years.  No  other  textbook  at  Williams  has  approached 
it  in  longevity.  Some  chapter  of  it  furnished  the  topic 
for  the  recitations  of  the  Senior  class  on  Saturday 
mornings.  Whatever  may  have  been  the  character  of 
these  recitations  in  the  earlier  periods,  during  the 
fifty  years  from  1836  to  1886,  when  Mark  Hopkins 
conducted  them,  they  ranged  over  wide  fields  of  in- 
quiry and  were  surpassed  in  interest  by  no  other 
classroom  exercises  of  the  college  year.  A  Department 
of  Religion  which  offers  courses  in  its  history  and 
philosophy  succeeded  these  Saturday  morning  con- 
ferences. 

Contrary  to  what  one  might  expect,  the  college 
church  has  been  a  small  factor  relatively  in  the  reli- 
gious history  of  the  institution.  It  was  organized  in 
June,  1834,  with  fifteen  members  —  Mark  and  Al- 
bert Hopkins,  professors;  Simeon  H.  Calhoun,  a  tutor, 
and  twelve  undergraduates.  The  induction  of  the  first 
pastor,  Mark  Hopkins,  into  office  took  place  immedi- 
ately after  the  inauguration  in  1836,  and  his  term  of 
service  continued  until  1883,  when  he  was  followed  by 
John  Henry  Denison  (1862),  who  retired  in  1889. 
Since  that  time  the  office  has  been  vacant,  different 
preachers  occupying  the  pulpit  each  successive  Sab- 

1  Robbins,  Diary,  i,  64.  This  controversy  has  a  certain  local  color, 
as  Dr.  Hopkins  was  pastor  of  the  Congregational  Church  at  Great 
Harrington  for  twenty-six  years,  and  Dr.  Stephen  West,  Vice-President 
of  the  college  from  1793  to  1812,  wrote  his  life. 

319 


WILLIAMS  COLLEGE 

bath.  For  the  year  1915-16  they  were  thirty-four  in 
number.  Attendance  of  all  students  is  required  at 
religious  exercises  Sunday  forenoon  and  evening  and 
at  morning  prayers  every  weekday.  A  few  years  ago 
considerable  opposition  to  this  compulsory  policy 
sprang  up  and  a  lively  controversy  followed,  but  the 
general  sentiment  of  undergraduates  as  well  as  of 
alumni  was  then  found  to  be  hostile  to  any  change. 
While  the  newer  type  of  piety  at  Williams  may  be 
less  definitely  theological  than  the  older,  it  is  quite 
as  sincere  and  efficient.  The  work  of  the  Christian 
Association,  successor  to  all  the  earlier  religious  and 
theological  societies,  comprises  a  Sunday  evening  serv- 
ice, Bible  and  mission  study,  neighborhood  schools, 
boys*  clubs  and  scout  work,  educational  classes,  and 
an  employment  bureau.1 

Aside  from  a  brief  and  incidental  alliance  with  the 
Berkshire  Medical  School,  —  the  alliance  began  in 
1823  and  came  to  an  end  in  1837,  —  Williams  has 
been  a  detached  college.  That  somewhat  is  gained  by 
isolation  —  by  standing  apart  from  the  university  — 
may  be  pretty  confidently  affirmed.  The  university 
aims  to  make  scholars,  pursues  knowledge  as  an  end, 
and  endeavors  to  enlarge  its  boundaries;  while  the 
liberal  college  finds  its  mission  in  the  field  of  general 
mental  development,  and  proceeds  upon  the  theory 
that  as  a  consequence  of  this  development  students 
will  secure  not  only  a  larger,  richer  intellectual  life, 
but  also  ampler  capacity  for  practical  service.  Differ- 
ences in  purpose  and  mission  involve  differences  in 
type  and  method  of  teaching.  Professors,  qualified 
1  Report  of  the  Williams  Christian  Association,  1915-16. 
320 


LOOKING  BEFORE  AND  AFTER 

to  undertake  the  specialization  and  research  of  uni- 
versity work,  are  often,  perhaps  commonly,  useless 
in  undergraduate  classrooms,  where  breadth,  mag- 
netism, imagination,  gifts  of  exposition  and  interpre- 
tation are  of  the  first  importance. 

As  to  the  future  of  the  liberal  college,  when  one 
considers  the  present  bias  toward  commercialism, 
and  the  passion  for  quick  returns,  possibly  he  may 
hesitate  to  say  that  it  is  secure.  Yet  it  is  hardly  con- 
ceivable that  any  coming  civilization  will  venture  to 
risk  the  consequences  of  abandoning  those  human- 
istic educational  institutions  which  take  the  things  of 
the  mind  —  the  assimilation  of  learning  into  culture 
—  to  be  their  province. 


THE   END 


X 

APPENDIX 


INVENTORY  OF  YE  LATE  EPHM  WILLIAMS  CHEST  TAKEN  AT 
LAKE  GEORGE  SEPT  15  1755  &c.  YE  CHEST  THEN  SENT 
COL.  LIDIUS'S. 

2  pair  of  striped  Linnen  Trowsers 

2  spotted  Woolen  vests 

I  wigg  Box  &  comb  &  I  wigg 

I  French  Bearskin  coat  white  Mettal  Buttons 

1  broad  cloth  coat  yellow  Mettal  Buttons 
5  check'd  shirts 

2  white  Linnen  Do 

3  Diaper  Napkins 

4  Pillow 

Books 

A  new  Roman  History  by  Questn  &  Answers 

Bland's  Military  Discipline 

4  Vols  of  Cato's  Letters 

2  Vols  of  Ye  Inpend*  Whigg 

2  red  Woosted  Caps 

Razors  &  Apparatus  &c. 

2  Linnen  Caps 

2  pair  Leather  Stockings 

2  "    Yarn  Do 
4     "    Woosted 

i     "    Linnen 

I  pair  Indian  Shoes  Beaded 

3  plain  Towels 

3  Silk  Handkerchiefs 
I  pair  Flannel  Holsters 
i  Beaded  Belt 

323 


APPENDIX 

I  pair  Leather  Breeches  Silver  Buttons 

I      "   Black  knit   Do 

i  Sword  Belt 

Ivory  Memd  Book  Silver  Leaves 

I  Silver  Spoon  &  Tea  Do  markd  M.  P. 

I  Psalm  Book     I  Testament 

Silk  purse  I  johanns  &  3  dollars  40  coppers  not  sent 

I  pen  knife  court  &  city  register  not  sent 

I  pair  shoe  buckles  silver  pair  Knee  Do 

I      "   White  Metal  shoe  Do  &  Knee  Do 

i  Japand  Snuff  Box l 

Colonel  Williams  had  a  suit  of  "scarlet  cloth"  made  shortly 
before  he  left  the  Berkshires  for  the  camp  at  Albany.  The 
tailor's  bill,  which  has  been  preserved,  is  dated  June  II,  1755, 
and  amounted  to  £16-5-2,  or  #48.65. 2 

II 

EPHRAIM  WILLIAMS  LIBRARY 

Maundrell's  Journey  from  Aleppo  to  Jerusalem,  a  Life  of 
Oliver  Cromwell,  Bishop  Burnet's  Travels,  La  Pluche's  Nature 
Displayed  (seven  volumes),  a  Book  on  Manners,  The  Reflector, 
The  Spectator  (nine  volumes),  Pope's  Works  (seven  volumes), 
The  Guardian  (two  volumes),  Salmon's  A  Modern  Gazetteer, 
The  Court  and  City  Register,  Anson's  A  Voyage  Round  the 
World,  An  Universal  History  from  the  Earliest  Account  of  Time 
(twenty  volumes),  Rapin's  History  of  England,  Chambers'  Die- 
tionary,  Ridgley's  A  Body  of  Divinity,  Harrington's  Oceana, 
Jacob's  Law  Dictionary,  Delany's  Revelation  Examined  with 
Candour,  The  Independent  Whig  (two  volumes),  Cato's  Letters 
(four  volumes),  Roman  History  by  way  of  Dialogue.3 

1  R.  H.  W.  Dwight,  Collection. 

2  Mass.  His.  Society,  MS.  81,  G  71. 

8  Inventory,  Registry  of  Probate,  Northampton.  These  books  with  a  single 
exception  —  the  Universal  History  —  appear  in  the  inventories  of  Colonel 
Williams'  executors. 

324 


APPENDIX 

III 

NEW  YORK  AND  VERMONT  STAGES 

The  Proprietors  .  .  .  inform  the  Public  that  they  have 
started  a  Line  of  Stages  from  NEW  YORK  to  BENNINGTON 
in  Vermont  by  way  of  Kings-Bridge,  White  Plains,  Bedford, 
Salem,  Franklin  .  .  .  Sheffield,  Great-Barrington,  Stockbridge, 
Lenox,  Pittsfield,  Lanesborough,  Williamstown  to  Bennington  — 
which  commenced  running  on  Monday  the  seventh  day  of 
November  instant ;  they  start  from  New  York  and  Bennington 
every  Monday,  Wednesday  and  Friday  at  six  o'clock  in  the 
morning.  .  .  .  The  fare  for  each  passenger  through  the  line 
NINE  DOLLARS;  FIVE  CENTS  per  mile  for  Way  Passen- 
gers; 4  Ib.  baggage  gratis;  150  Ib.  equal  to  a  passenger.  .  .  . 

N.B.  The  above  route  is  the  shortest  and  most  direct  .  .  . 
through  to  Canada  and  far  the  best  for  the  distance  known  in 
New  York  or  Massachusetts.1 


IV 

"I  was  all  in  a  moment's  time  seized  with  a  fit  of  numb 
Palsy,  which  deprived  me  of  all  sense  &  strength  on  my  left 
side  from  head  to  foot  and  all  most  deprived  me  of  Speech  for 
some  time;  but  by  the  Blessing  of  God  on  the  means  used  I  am 
so  far  recovered  as  to  be  able  to  sett  up  and  write  a  little 
and  walk  the  room  some  little."2 

1  Western  Star,  November  28,  1796. 

8  Some  Old  Letters,  Scribner's  Magazine,  xvn,  254.  These  letters  of 
Ephraim  Williams,  Senior,  were  addressed  with  a  single  exception  to  the 
"  Dear  Child,"  Elijah.  After  the  death  of  his  first  wife,  Elizabeth  Jackson, 
he  married  Abigail  Jones  of  Weston,  and  they  had  seven  children, — 
Abigail,  Josiah,  Elizabeth,  who  died  in  infancy,  Judith,  Elizabeth,  Elijah, 
and  Enoch. 


325 


APPENDIX 

V 

WILLIAMS  COLLEGE 

The  public  are  respectfully  informed  that  at  a  meeting  of 
the  corporation  of  Williams  College  in  Williamstown  on  the 
sixth  day  of  August,  1793,  Mr.  Ebenezer  Fitch  was  unani- 
mously elected  President;  the  Rev.  Stephen  West,  D.D.,  Vice 
President;  Daniel  Dewey,  Esq.,  Secretary;  Mr.  Noah  Lindly, 
Tutor,  and  Mr.  Nathaniel  Steele,  Master  of  the  Grammar 
School.1 

Among  other  regulations,  the  following  were  adopted  by  the 
President  and  Trustees  of  said  College : 

That  candidates  for  the  Freshman,  Sophomore  and  Junior 
Classes  will  be  examined  on  the  first  Tuesday  of  September 
next  and  at  the  end  of  Vacation  and  afterward  as  they  shall 
make  application.  The  qualifications  for  admission  will  be  the 
same  with  those  required  by  the  laws  of  Yale  College  except 
only  that  in  case  any  person  shall  choose  to  study  the  French 
language  instead  of  the  Greek,  he  must  be  able,  in  order  to  his 
admission  into  the  Freshman  Class,  to  read,  pronounce  and 
construe,  with  a  good  degree  of  accuracy,  in  some  approved 
French  author. 

The  first  public  Commencement  will  be  on  the  first  Wednes- 
day in  September  in  the  year  1795  and  afterwards  on  the  first 
Wednesdays  of  September  annually. 

There  will  be  three  vacations  annually,  viz:  from  the  first 
Wednesday  in  September  five  weeks  and  from  the  third 
Wednesdays  in  January  and  May  three  weeks. 

A  large  and  convenient  College  Edifice  is  provided  for  the 
accommodation  of  students;  a  decent  library  and  apparatus 
will  be  immediately  provided.  Victualing  has  not  hitherto 
exceeded  5  shillings  a  week.  The  students  must  provide  them- 
selves with  bedding.  A  Grammar  School  with  an  accom- 

1  The  Grammar  School  was  continued  until  1808  when  only  three  stu- 
dents were  in  attendance  and  then  discontinued.  (Ledger  of  the  Treasurer.) 

326 


APPENDIX 

plished  instructor  is  connected  with  the  College.  The  same 
branches  of  literature,  which  were  taught  and  the  mode  of  in- 
struction which  was  pursued  in  the  Academy  will  be  continued. 

At  a  meeting  of  the  said  corporation,  Ordered,  That  the 
secretary  be  directed  to  communicate  the  foregoing  to  the 
several  Printers  in  this  and  the  neighboring  counties,  within 
the  Commonwealth  and  the  adjoining  states  and  request  them 
to  insert  the  same  in  their  respective  papers  for  the  information 
of  the  public. 

Attest:  DANIEL  DEWEY,  Sec.1 


VI 

PENALTIES  OR  "  MULCTS  "  ACCORDING  TO  THE  BY-LAWS  OF 

1795 

Tardiness  at  prayers  One  penny 

Absence  or  egress  from  prayers  Five  pence 

Indecent  or  irreverent  behaviour  at  prayers  Three  shillings 

Disorderly  conduct  before  or  after  prayers  Three  shillings 
Profanation  of  the  Sabbath  by  walking  in 

the  fields,  streets,  &c  Three  shillings 

Absence  from  public  worship  One  shilling 
Coming  to  public  worship  after  the  first 

singing  Six  pence 
Employing   a   barber   or   hair-dresser   on 

Lord's  Day  Two  shillings 

Second  offence  Four  shillings 
Frequenting  any  tippling  shop  or  house  of 

ill-fame  in  Williamstown  Six  shillings 

Drunkenness  Three  shillings 
Cursing,    fornication   or   singing   obscene 

songs  Ten  shillings 
Playing  at  cards,  billiards  or  any  game  of 

chance  Five  shillings 

Second  offence  Ten  shillings 

1  Vermont  Gazette,  August  16,  1793.   Western  Star,  August  27,  1793. 

327 


APPENDIX 

Selling  or  bartering  books  &c  above  twelve 

shillings  in  value  without  permission  Five  shillings 
Breaking  open  a  chamber  or  any  thing 

under  lock  and  key  Five  shillings 
Fighting  with,  striking  or  wilfully  hurting 

any  person  Five  shillings 

Keeping  a  gun  or  powder  in  college  One  shilling 

Hunting  or  fishing  without  leave  One  shilling 

Firing  a  gun  on  the  campus  Two  shillings 

Bonfires,  fireworks  or  indecent  noises  Five  shillings 

Lying  Two  shillings 
Refusing  to  give  evidence  respecting  any 

breach  of  College  laws  Six  shillings 
Neglect  in  coming  when  sent  for  Five  shillings 
Presuming  to  act  in  or  to  attend  stage- 
plays  Five  shillings 
Absence  from  chambers  in  study-hours  or 

after  nine  o'clock  at  night  Six  pence 
Unexcused  absence  under  a  week,  each 

night  One  shilling 

and  six 
pence 

Unexcused  absence  for  a  week  Nine  shillings 
Unexcused  absence  for  more  than  a  week, 

each  night  One  shilling 
Neglect  to  cover  a  library  book  with  paper, 

each  day  One  pence 
Detaining  a  book  beyond  the  limited  time, 

each  week  Six  pence 

Lending  a  library  book  Three  shillings 

Every  spot  of  ink  on  a  library  book  Two  pence 

Every  leaf  penetrated  after  the  first  One  penny 

Turning  down  a  leaf  One  shilling 
Failure  to  reside  statedly  in  the  chamber 

assigned  Three  shillings 


328 


APPENDIX 

VII 

LETTER  TO  PRESIDENT  JOHN  ADAMS 

Sir,  —  Though  members  of  an  infant  Institution  and  of 
little  comparative  weight  in  the  scale  of  the  Union,  we  feel  for 
the  interest  of  our  country.  It  becomes  every  patriotic  youth 
in  whose  breast  there  yet  remains  a  single  principle  of  honour, 
to  come  forward  calmly,  boldly,  and  rationally  to  defend  his 
country.  When  we  behold,  Sir,  a  great  and  powerful  nation 
exerting  all  its  energy  to  undermine  the  vast  fabrics  of  Religion 
and  Government,  when  we  behold  them  inculcating  the  dis- 
belief of  a  Deity,  of  future  rewards  and  punishments ;  when  we 
behold  them  discarding  every  moral  principle  and  dissolving 
every  tie  which  connects  men  together  in  Society,  which 
sweetens  life  and  renders  it  worthy  enjoying;  when  we  behold 
them  brutalizing  man  that  they  may  govern  him,  —  as  friends 
to  Humanity,  as  sharers  in  the  happiness  of  our  fellowmen,  as 
Citizens  of  the  world,  our  feelings  are  deeply  affected.  We 
commiserate  the  fate  of  our  European  Brethren ;  we  weep  over 
the  awful  calamities  of  anarchy  and  atheism. 

But  when  we  behold  this  Nation,  not  contented  with  its 
vast  European  dominions,  but  endeavouring  to  extend  its 
Colossean  empire  across  the  Atlantic,  every  passion  is  roused; 
our  souls  are  fired  with  indignation.  We  see  that  their  object  is 
universal  domination ;  we  see  that  nothing  less  than  the  whole 
world,  nothing  less  than  the  universal  degradation  of  man,  will 
satisfy  these  merciless  destroyers.  But  be  assured,  Sir,  we  will 
oppose  them  with  all  our  youthful  energy  and  risk  our  lives  in 
defence  of  our  country.  Untaught  in  the  school  of  adulation,  or 
the  courts  of  sycophants,  we  speak  forth  the  pure  sentiments 
of  Independence.  We  give  you  our  warmest  approbation.  We 
behold  with  true  patriotic  pride  the  dignified  conduct  of  our 
Chief  Magistrate  at  this  alarming  crisis.  We  are  highly  pleased 
with  the  moderation,  candor,  and  firmness  which  have  uni- 
formly characterized  your  administration.  Though  measures 
decisive  and  energetic  will  ever  meet  with  censure  from  the 

329 


APPENDIX 

unprincipled,  the  disaffected,  and  the  factious,  yet  virtue  must 
eternally  triumph.  It  is  this  alone  that  can  stand  the  test  of 
calumny;  and  you  have  this  consolation,  that  the  disappro- 
bation of  the  wicked  is  solid  praise. 

At  this  eventful  period  our  eyes  are  fixed  upon  you,  Sir,  as 
our  political  Father,  and  under  Providence  we  rely  on  your 
wisdom  and  patriotism,  with  the  cooperation  of  our  national 
Council,  to  perpetuate  our  prosperity ;  and  we  solemnly  engage, 
that,  while  our  Government  is  thus  purely  and  virtuously 
administered,  we  will  give  it  our  whole  Support. 

These,  Sir,  are  the  unanimous  sentiments  of  the  Members  of 
Williams  College,  who,  though  convinced  of  the  evils  of  War, 
yet  despise  peace  when  put  into  competition  with  National 
Freedom  and  Sovereignty. 

Signed  by  a  Committee  in  behalf  of  one  hundred  and  thirty 
Students  of  Williams  College  — 

DAVID  L.  PERRY. 

SAMUEL  COWLS. 

SOLOMON  STRONG. 

SILAS  HUBBELL. 

Committee. 
WILLIAMS  COLLEGE,  June  19,  1798. 

PRESIDENT  ADAMS'  REPLY 

Gentlemen:  — 

I  have  not  been  less  surprised  than  delighted  with  an  address 
from  130  students  of  Williams  college,  presented  to  me  by  the 
President  pro  tempore  of  the  senate,  Mr.  Sedgwick. 

So  large  a  number  in  so  recent  an  institution,  as  it  shows  the 
flourishing  circumstances  of  our  country  at  present,  affords  a 
most  pleasing  prospect  of  young  citizens  in  a  course  of  educa- 
tion, for  the  future  government,  instruction  and  service  of  the 
country. 

The  composition  of  your  address,  shows  a  respectable  sam- 
ple of  your  literary  talents,  as  the  principles  and  sentiments  it 
contains  do  honour  to  your  heads  and  hearts. 

It  is  impossible  for  the  unperverted  mind  of  youth,  to  see  the 

330 


APPENDIX 

world  filled  with  violence,  as  it  was  before  the  flood,  and  every 
virtue  and  every  principle  trampled  under  foot,  without  feeling 
his  soul  fired  with  a  generous  indignation.  Your  readiness  to 
oppose  the  torrent,  with  all  your  youthful  energy  and  risk  your 
lives  in  defence  of  your  natural  right,  is  greatly  to  your  honour. 

The  testimony  of  your  opinion,  in  favor  of  the  candor,  firm- 
ness and  moderation  of  my  administration,  is  the  more  valu- 
able, as  you  have  not  been  educated  in  the  school  of  adulation, 
and  speak  the  pure  sentiments  of  independence. 

When  your  eyes  are  fixed  upon  me,  as  your  political  father, 
you  at  once  excite  all  the  affections  of  my  heart,  and  make  me 
sensibly  feel  my  own  insufficiency  for  the  arduous  duties  of  that 
important  character.  With  the  cooperation  of  the  National 
councils,  and  the  virtues  of  our  citizens,  I  despair  not,  of  the 
continuance  of  our  national  prosperity.  The  talents  and  ener- 
gies of  the  rising  generation  are  a  sure  pledge  of  our  safety 
and  the  growing  importance  of  America. 

JOHN  ADAMS.1 

PHILADELPHIA,  June  29th,  1798. 

1  Hampshire  Gazette,  July  25,  1798. 


331 


APPENDIX 


VIII 

WILLIAMS  VOLUNTEERS,  GRADUATE  AND  NON-GRADUATE,  IN 
THE  CIVIL  WAR,  AND  THEIR  RANK 

Major-General I 

Brevet  Major-Generals 2 

Brigadier-Generals 2 

Brevet  Brigadier-Generals 10 

Adjutant-Generals 4 

Colonels 15 

Brevet  Colonels 10 

Assistant  Adjutant-Generals 6 

Inspector-General I 

Assistant  Surgeon-General I 

Lieutenant-Colonels IO 

Brevet  Lieutenant-Colonels 5 

Medical  Director I 

Majors 1 1 

Brevet  Majors 5 

Surgeons 25 

Assistant  Surgeons 24 

Paymasters  * 5 

Captains 45 

Brevet  Captain I 

Provost  Marshal I 

Adjutants 4 

Lieutenants 23 

Sergeants  and  Corporals 8 

Volunteer  Aide  I 

Medical  Cadets 3 

Privates 67 

Chaplains 26 

Christian  and  Sanitary  Commissions 36 

1  Two  paymasters,  Edwin  Stewart  (1862)  and  Theodore  Strong  Thomp- 
son (1862),  were  retired  after  forty  years  of  service  with  the  rank  of  Rear 
Admiral. 

332 


APPENDIX 

IX 
BILL  PRATT 

The  first  attempt  at  a  pen-and-ink  sketch  of  Bill  was  made 
by  Washington  Gladden  in  the  Editor's  Table  of  the  "Williams 
Quarterly"  for  March,  1859:  — 

Scene  —  East  College  Yard.  Time  —  Morning  at  Six. 
Dramatis  personae  —  A  boy  and  a  stout  man. 
Wood-pile  in  the  background ;  boy  counting  stix, 
Man  sawing  and  shouting  as  loud  as  he  can. 

Hen!  blast  it,  roll  on!  Wot  ye  sittin'  there  for? 

'Lectricity !  lightnin' !  you  're  wuss  than  a  stun ! 
Gable  ends!  sistimony!  come,  grab  that  ar  saw! 

There  is  time  fur  to  rest  when  yeou  git  yer  work  done. 

Boy  yawns.   Enter  African,  grown  somewhat  grey. 

"That  he  know,  so  —  ye  know  —  that  he  know,  Mr.  Pratt, 
For  I  mean,  sa  —  ye  know  —  can  ye  tell  me  I  say  — 

I  mean  —  can  ye  tell  me,  sa,  what  noise  is  that?'* 

Man  pauses  —  Polidity,  voice  o*  the  spheres! 

Excommunicate  Cicero!  (that's  a  good  saw) 
Brest-bone  of  futurity !  times  running  gears 

On  the  diaphragm !  suicide !  Berkshire !  aw  haw. 


INDEX 


Adams,  John,  letter  of  Williams  stu- 
dents to,  69,  329;  his  reply,  69, 

Adams,  William  W.,  259,  262. 
Adelphic  Union,  65. 
Albany,  10. 

Alden,  Joseph,  132,  171-72,  179. 
Alderman,  Edwin  A.,  259. 
Alumni  Association,  first,  116. 
Ancram,  iron  mills,  raided,  21. 
Andrew,  John  A.,  189. 
Andrews,  E.  Benjamin,  252. 
Andrews,  Samuel  J.,  letter  of,  282. 
Angell,  James  B.,  176,  216,  272. 
Anti-Slavery  Society,  Williams,  139- 

40. 

Apparatus,  52,  53,  165-66. 
Armstrong,  Samuel  C.,  enters  Junior 

class,  203;  classmates  quoted,  203, 

204;  in  the  Civil  War,  204;  founds 

Hampton  Institute,  204,  205. 
Arnold,  Matthew,  217. 
Ashley,  Chester,  72,  73. 
Ashley,  Jonathan,  eulogy  of  Ephraim 

Williams,   Sr.,  25;  letter    of  the 

founder  to,  27. 
Astronomical  Observatory,  Hopkins, 

164. 
Athletics,  294-97;  college  colors  and, 

297;  President  Garfield  on,  297. 

Backus,  William  F.,  58,  59. 

Bacon,  John,  32,  39. 

Ballard,  Addison,  266. 

Barker,  James  M.,  263;  address  at 
dedication  of  Thompson  Memorial 
Chapel,  249. 

Barnard,  Daniel  D.,  117. 

Bascom,  John,  173,  176,  181,  222, 
231,  251,  295;  address  at  the  in- 
auguration of  President  Chad- 
bourne,  231;  address  at  the  cen- 
tennial, 250;  president  of  the 
University  of  Wisconsin,  274;  his 
books  and  literary  style,  275;  as  a 
teacher,  275;  on  Greek  letter  fra- 
ternities, 288,  289;  lover  of  nature, 
316. 


Beecher,    Lyman,    sermon    at    the 

funeral  of  Obookiah,  84. 
Beman,  Nathan  S.  S.,  146. 
Benedict,  Erastus  C.,  116,  289. 
Benjamin,  Samuel  G.  W.,  195,  196. 
"Berkshire,"  on  the  resignation  of 

President  Fitch,  90. 
Berkshire  Medical  School,  320. 
Berkshire  scenery,  appreciation  of, 

309-15- 

Bernard,  Governor,  43,  44. 

Betts,  Samuel,  184. 

Biennial  Examinations,  167,  168. 

Bishop,  Henry  W.,  address  at  the 
reinterment  of  the  remains  of 
President  Fitch  in  the  college 
cemetery,  92,  93. 

Elaine,  James  G.,  212,  213. 

Booth,  Robert  R.,  262,  288. 

Braddock,  General,  8,  10. 

Briggs,  Charles  A.,  252. 

Brooks,  William  K.,  201. 

Bross,  William,  217. 

Brown,  Augustus  C.,  92. 

Bryant,  William  C.,  169,  172,  310; 
enters  the  Sophomore  class,  85; 
precocity  of,  85,  86;  college  career 
of,  87;  poem  at  the  fiftieth  anni- 
versary of  his  class,  87;  letter  to 
Governor  Washburn,  87;  at  com- 
mencement in  1869,  88;  newspa- 
per reporter's  description  of,  88; 
speech  at  the  commencement  of 
1876,  88,  89;  Thanatopsis,  89. 

Bryce,  Ambassador,  259. 

"Bunter  Abe,"  306. 

Burr,  Charles  H.,  264. 

Bushnell,  Jedidiah,  61. 

Calhpun,  Simeon  H.,  134,  143,  301. 

Calkins,  Alonzo,  toast  at  the  semi- 
centennial, 185. 

Canfield,  James  H.,  163-64,  199- 
200,  252. 

Canning,  Edward  W.  B.,  186. 

Carnegie,  Andrew,  252. 

Carter,  Franklin,  176,  181,  234,  262, 
264,  265 ;  interview  with  President 


335 


INDEX 


Chadbourne,  241;  professorships, 
243;  elected  president,  243;  induc- 
tion and  inaugural  address,  244; 
problem  of  funds,  244;  rebuilding 
the  campus,  245;  new  professors, 
245;  introduction  of  the  elective 
system,  245-47;  Greek  withdrawn 
from  entrance  requirements,  247; 
taxation  of  college  property,  248, 
249;  centennial  anniversary,  250- 
253;  "Is  Williams  a  rich  man's 
college?"  285;  resignation,  253; 
publications,  253;  bi-centenary  of 
the  founder,  261. 

Cartoon,  anent  the  removal  of  the 
college,  105,  106. 

Catechism,  the  Shorter,  225,  319. 

Cato's  Letters,  15. 

Centennial  of  the  college,  250-53. 

Chadbourne,  Paul  A.,  172,  176,  213, 
316;  early  life,  227;  enters  Wil- 
liams, 227;  teaches  in  preparatory 
schools,  227,  228;  ill  health,  227; 
professor  at  Williams,  228;  presi- 
dent of  Amherst  Agricultural  Col- 
lege, 229;  president  of  the  Univer- 
sity of  Wisconsin,  229;  president 
of  Williams,  230;  inaugural  ad- 
dress, 232;  difficulties  of  the  situ- 
ation, 233;  changes  in  the  faculty, 
234;  terms  of  admission  and  cur- 
riculum, 235;  theory  of  discipline, 
236;  resignation,  238;  Dr.  Prime 
and,  239;  progress  of  the  college, 
240;  final  baccalaureate,  239; 
characteristics,  241,  242. 

Chamberlin,  Robert  M.,  231. 

Chapels,  130,  162,  257. 

Chapin,  Oliver,  58. 

Chapman,  Thomas,  diary  of,  51. 

"Characters,"  305,  306. 

Civil  War,  the  college  and,  188-91; 
dedication  of  monument  to  Wil- 
liams men  killed  in  the  war,  191; 
table  of  the  rank  of  volunteers,  332. 

Clarke,  Samuel  F.,  245. 

Class  Day,  303. 

Classroom,  methods  and  require- 
ments, 66,  152,  224,  225. 

Co-education,  the  college  and,  233. 

Coffin,  Vincent,  73. 

College  church,  319. 

College  customs,  298-306. 

College  laws,  46,  49,  327. 

Collegiate  Institute  at  Amherst,  102, 
104,  123,  127,  128. 


Collins,  Daniel,  32. 
Commencement,  48-50,  69,  70,  116, 

303-05. 

Committee  on  relocation  of  the 
college,  103;  report  of,  107,  108. 

Cooke,  Parsons,  143;  on  the  induc- 
tion of  President  Griffin,  126. 

Cox,  Samuel  H.,  quoted,  148,  151, 
187,  310. 

Cox,  Thomas,  "professor  of  dust  and 
ashes,"  306. 

Crown  Point,  8. 

Curriculum,  47,  100,  133,  166. 

Danforth,  Keyes,  311. 

"Dare-Devil  Club,"  180. 

Dartmouth  College  case,  112. 

Davis,  Emerson,  82,  116. 

Davis,  Henry,  60. 

Davis,  Horace,  on  the  Williams  of 

1845-46,  283-85. 
Davis,  Samuel  H.,  197,  277. 
Day,  Jeremiah,  60. 
Debating    societies,    66,    138,    176; 

commotions  in,  177-79. 
Denison,  John  H.,  319. 
Dewey,  Charles  A.,  185. 
Dewey,  Chester,  59,  139,  140,  313; 

letter  of,  94;  resignation,  133. 
Dewey,  Daniel  N.,  158,  179,  301. 
Dewey,  Francis  H.,  234,  262. 
Dewey,  Harry  P.,  258. 
Dewey,  Orville,  75. 
Dieskau,  Baron  Ludwig  August,  12. 
Dike,  Samuel  W.,  198,  199. 
Dimmock,  William  R.,  175. 
Discipline,  46,  99,  135,  136,  180-82, 

183,  236-37. 
Dodd,  Cyrus  M.,  176;  lover  of  rare 

books  and  Berkshire  scenery,  276, 

316. 

Drinking,  141. 
Dunbar,  Elijah,  53. 
Dunbar,  James  R.,  263. 
Durfee,  Calvin,  143. 
"  Dutch  Gentlemen  from  Albany,  "20. 
Dwight,  Abigail  W.,  sends  books  to 

Ft.    Massachusetts,    7;   letter   to 

Thomas  Williams,   23;   pen-and- 
ink  portrait  of,  314. 
Dwight,  Edwin  W.,  83-85,  156,  3 13. 
Dwight,  Henry  W.,  155. 
Dwight,  Timothy    (1752-1817),  on 

the  removal  of  the  college,   109; 

ascends  Greylock  in  1799,  314. 
Dwight,  Timothy  (1828-  ),  252. 


336 


INDEX 


East  College,  50;  burned,  165;  rebuilt 
and  renamed,  165. 

Eaton,  Amos,  his  lectures  and  influ- 
ence, 100-02. 

Edwards,  Jonathan,  controversy  with 
the  Williams  family,  24-25, 27;  bill 
for  boarding  Indians,  279. 

Edwards,  Justin,  74,  75. 

Elective  system,  245-48. 

Eliot,  Charles  W.,  216,  246,  259. 

Emerson,  Samuel  M.,  120. 

Emmons,  Ebenezer,  Adirondack  sur- 
veys and,  170;  in  the  classroom, 
170;  narrow  escape  of,  171;  state 
geologist  of  North  Carolina,  171. 

Entrance  requirements,  46,  100,  166, 

235. 

Equitable  Fraternity,  286-88. 
Everett,    Edward,    address   at   the 

Commencement  of  1837,  304. 
Executors  of  the  founder's  will,  21, 

22;  defense  of  against  charges  of 

delay,  29-30;  final  report  of,  31. 
Expenses  of  students,  279-83. 

Faculty,  students  and,  58,  137,  180, 
181-82,  236. 

Fayerweather  Hall,  165. 

Federalism  in  the  administration  of 
President  Fitch,  69-70. 

Fernald,  Orlando  M.,  234,  270. 

Field,  David  D.,  his  Codes,  144;  ad- 
dress at  the  dedication  of  the  sol- 
diers' monument  in  Williamstown, 
191;  address  at  the  semi-centen- 
nial of  graduation,  144;  in  eulogy 
of  Mark  Hopkins,  265;  on  Greek 
letter  fraternities,  289;  Berkshire 
scenery  and,  316. 

Field,  Eugene,  192. 

Field,  Henry  M.,  251. 

Field,  Rev.  Dr.,  188,  313. 

Field,  Stephen  j.,  life  in  California, 
194;  Judge  of  the  Supreme  Court 
of  the  United  States,  194,  195. 

Fines,  46,  47,  138,  327-28. 

Fitch,  Ebenezer,  314;  letter  to  Rev. 
Dr.  Miller,  3;  Preceptor  of  the 
Free  School,  39;  early  life,  40; 
president  of  Williams  College,  45; 
ordination,  48;  first  Commence- 
ment, 49,  50;  rebellions  of  1802 
and  1808,  57,  58;  Jonas  King 
and,  119;  in  local  politics,  67,  71; 
crusade  against  Sabbath-breaking, 
71;  resignation,  89,  90;  President 


Griffin  and,  90;  the  trustees  and, 
90,  91;  his  death,  92;  remains  re- 
moved to  Williamstown,  92;  Judge 
Bishop  on,  92,  93;  situation  of  the 
college  and,  277. 

Ford,  George  A.,  251. 

Fourth  of  July,  48,  300-02. 

Fox,  Philip,  269. 

Fraternities,  Greek  letter,  introduc- 
tion of,  286;  opposition  to,  286-89; 
a  case  of  discipline,  290;  present 
status  of,  291,  292. 

Free  School,  16,  68;  incorporated,  31, 
32;  first  meeting  of  trustees,  33; 
lottery  for,  34-37;  schoolmaster 
and  Preceptor  for  chosen,  39; 
opened,  41 ;  becomes  Williams  Col- 
lege, 44,  45. 

French,  an  entrance  optional  for 
Greek,  46,  247. 

Garfield,  Harry  A.,  elected  president, 
258;  induction,  258,  259;  inaugural 
address,  259;  progress  of  the  col- 


lege, 260,  261. 
Garfield,   " 


James  A.,  206,  231,  287; 
enters  Williams,  210;  student  im- 
pression of,  210,  211,  212;  Mark 
Hopkins  and,  210,  211;  Ingalls  on, 
21 1 ;  the  assault  upon  Sumner  and, 
21 1 ;  Andrew  D.  White  quoted, 
212;  as  a  debater,  212;  nominated 
for  the  presidency,  212,  213;  as- 
sassination of,  213;  funeral  service 
in  the  Rotunda  of  the  Capitol,  214. 

Gifts  of  the  State,  162. 

Gilman,  Daniel  C.,  216,  252. 

Gilson,  Charles  F.,  267. 

Gladden,  Washington,  169,  205,  274, 
316;  "The  mountains,  the  moun- 
tains," 318. 

Glezen,  Levi,  103. 

Goldsmith's  "philosophical  vaga- 
bond" and  Greek,  248. 

Goodrich,  Chauncey,  115. 

Goodrich  Hall,  162. 

Gordon,  Thomas,  15. 

Gravel  Day,  298. 

Great  Carrying  Place,  II. 

Greek,  entrance  requirements  and, 
46,  247. 

Green,  Byram,  on  the  Haystack 
prayer-meeting,  78-80,  186. 

Green's  Short  History,  272. 

Greenfield,  106,  107. 

Greylock,firstpathup,3i2;  ascended 


337 


INDEX 


in  1799  by  Presidents  Fitch  and 
Dwight,  314,  315. 

Griffin,  Edward  D.,  62,  116;  elected 
president,  124;  earlier  career,  124- 
26;  induction,  126;  the  tide  turned, 
127;  petition  of  Amherst  Institute, 
127,  128;  panic  in  Williamstown, 
'128;  the  great  revival,  129,  130; 
raises  $25,000,  129,  130;  builds 
Griffin  Hall,  130-1-32;  corner-stone 
laid,  131;  dedication  of,  132;  resig- 
nation, 148;  characteristics,  149- 

Griffin,  Edward  H.,  234,  244,  258. 

Griffin,  Nathaniel  H.,  175. 

Griffin  Hall,  corner-stone  laid,  131; 

dedicated,  132;  rebuilt,  132. 
Gross,  Charles,  240,  241,  251. 
Grosvenor,  William  M.,  251. 
Guild,  Curtis,  259. 
Gulielmensian,  308. 
Gymnasium,  245,  294,  295. 

Hale,  Edward  E.,  73. 

Hale,  Nathan,  73;  advocates  re- 
moval, 112,  113. 

Hall,  Charles  C,  250,  263. 

Hall,  Gordon,  62,  76,  82. 

Hall,  G.  Stanley,  251. 

Hallock,  Gerard,  118,  119. 

Hallock,  Jeremiah,  83. 

Hallock,  Moses,  school  at  Plainfield, 
118. 

Hallock,  William  A.,  118. 

Hawthorne,  Nathaniel,  304. 

Haystack  prayer-meeting,  Byram 
Green  and,  78-80;  semi-centennial 
of,  1 86,  187;  centennial,  187,  188. 

Hewitt,  John  H.,  245,  259,  261,  279; 
acting-president,  254. 

Hill,  Clement  H.,  234. 

History  of  the  County  of  Berkshire, 

313. 

Hoar,  George  F.,  176,  206. 

Hopkins,  Albert,  132,  135,  165,  170, 
179,  287;  personality  of,  172;  in 
the  classroom,  173;  astronomical 
observatory,  164;  expedition  to 
Nova  Scotia,  134,  173;  noon 
prayer-meeting,  173;  semi-cen- 
tennial of  the  Haystack  prayer- 
meeting,  1 86,  187;  White  Oaks 
and,  174;  as  a  preacher,  174;  sym- 
pathy with  nature,  315. 

Hopkins,  Edward  P.,  190. 

Hopkins,  Henry,  187,  190,  234,  259; 


chaplain  in  Civil  War,  254, 
255;  pastorates,  255;  centennial 
preacher,  250;  elected  president, 
254;  inauguration,  255,  256;  prog- 
ress of  the  college,  256,  257; 
death  of,  257,  258. 

Hopkins,  Mark,  132,  182,  230;  tutor, 
158;  professor,  158;  elected  presi- 
dent, 155;  early  life,  I55~57;  at 
school,  155;  Rev.  E.  W.  Dwight 
and,  156;  secretary  to  Timothy 
Woodbridge,  156;  teaches  in  Vir- 
ginia, 157;  enters  college,  157;  ora- 
tion on  "Mystery,"  158;  studies 
medicine,  158;  induction  as  presi- 
dent, 158;  inaugural  address,  159, 
160;  the  legislature  and,  160,  161; 
the  campus,  162;  equipment,  155, 
156;  enrolment  of  students,  215; 
oration  at  the  semi-centennial, 
184;  publications  of,  216;  Evi- 
dences of  Christianity,  216,  217; 
controversy  with  President  Mc- 
Cosh,  218,  219;  the  Battle  of  the 
Hymns,  219,  220;  his  speaking 
without  notes,  220;  his  baccalaure- 
ates, 221;  literary  style,  221,  222; 
scheme  of  study,  222 ;  in  the  class- 
room, 222-26;  reticence  of,  224; 
relations  with  the  faculty,  226; 
goal  of  his  teaching,  226;  death  of, 
265. 

Hopkins,  Samuel,  318,  319. 

Hough,  Simon,  18. 

Hoyt,  Henry  M.,  262. 

Kurd,  George  F.,  256. 

Hyde,  Alvan,  115. 

Hyde,  William  De  Witt,  187. 

Independent  Whig,  15. 

Indian  School  at  Stockbridge,  24.' 

Ingalls,  John  J.,  214;  U.S.  Senator, 

206;  President  pro  temper e  of  the 

Senate,  207;  defeated  in  1891,  207; 

bust   of   in   Statuary   Hall,   208; 

penchant  for  sarcasm,  208;  love  of 

nature,  209;  poems,  209. 

ackson,  Abraham,  will  of,  I,  2. 

ackson,  Elizabeth,  I. 

ackson  Hall,  302. 

ackson  Supper,  302,  303. 

acobus,  Professor,  quoted,  122.  ^ 

ohnson,  Sir  William,  expedition 
against  Crown  Point,  8;  at  Great 
Carrying  Place,  n;  proceeds  to 


338 


INDEX 


Lake  George,  12;  repels  attack  of 

Dieskau,  13. 
ones,  Israel,  22,  37,  103. 
ordan,  John  P.  and  others,  160. 
udson,  Adoniram,  80. 
udson,  Edward,  187. 
udson,  Henry  P.,  251. 

Kellogg,  Ebenezer,  99,  169,  181,  313. 

Kellogg,  Giles  B.,  301. 

Kellogg  Hall,  162,  163. 

Kent,  James,  103,  104. 

King,  Jonas,  struggles  for  an  educa- 
tion, 119-21;  remarkable  linguist, 
122;  missionary  in  Greece,  122. 

Landscape,  Northern  Berkshire, 
309-18;  the  founder  and,  310; 
President  Griffin  and,  310;  early 
enthusiasts,  310-18. 

Lasell,  Edward,  132,  169. 

Lawrence,  Amos,  260. 

Lawrence,  William,  250,  252. 

Lawton,  George  F.,  288. 

Lawyers  as  congressmen,  68. 

Lefavour,  Henry,  235. 

Leland,  Aaron  W.,  86,  123,  310. 

Lester,  John,  45. 

Letter  of  students  to  President  John 
Adams,  69. 

Liberal  college,  the  university  and, 
320;  future  of,  321. 

Libraries,  52,  53,  260. 

Lincoln,  Isaac  N.,  175. 

Linsly,  Noah,  45. 

Literary  societies,  65,  138,  176-79. 

Lodge,  Henry  C.,  250,  252. 

Loomis,  Harvey,  256. 

Lotbeniere,  Marquis  de,  54. 

Lottery  in  aid  of  Free  School,  34; 
drawings  of  in  Boston,  35;  cur- 
rency troubles  of,  36;  results,  37. 

Ludlow,  Henry  G.,  141. 

Lyceum  of  Natural  History,  133, 134. 

Mabie,  Hamilton  W.,  259. 

Macauley,  Thomas,  115. 

Mackay,  Samuel,  elected  professor, 

54;  early  life,  54;  book-store,  55; 

his  chair  "abolished,"  56;  tomb  of 

his  wife,  57. 
Mackenzie,  Ronald,  Gladden's  letter 

about,  205;  military  career,  205, 

206. 

Mark  Twain,  quoted,  85. 
McCosh,  James,  218. 


Mears,  Leverett,  245. 

Merriman,  Daniel,  258,  263. 

Mills,  Elijah  H.,  72,  ill. 

Mills,  Samuel  J.,  scholarship,  76; 
absorbing  interest  in  missions,  77 ; 
Haystack  prayer-meeting  and,  77- 
80;  "The  Brethren,"  80;  at  An- 
dover  Theological  Seminary,  80; 
General  Association  of  Massachu- 
setts and,  81;  home  missionary, 
81-82;  visits  Africa,  82;  sources  of 
his  power,  82,  83. 

Mohawk  Trail,  18. 

Moore,  Zephaniah  S.,  elected  presi- 
dent, 97;  early  life,  98;  inaugura- 
tion, 99;  advocates  removal,  103, 
105;  resignation,  115;  inaugurated 
president  of  Amherst  Institute, 
123. 

Morley,  Sardis  B.,  301. 

Morton,  Miss  Eliza  S.,  on  Berkshire 
scenery,  314. 

Morton,  Marcus,  183,  184. 

Mountain  Day,  311. 

Murray,  Nicholas,  143. 

Nelson,  Henry  L.,  256,  271. 

Newell,  Samuel,  80. 

Niles,  Samuel,  on  the  death  of  the 

founder,  13. 
Noble,  Daniel,  32,  37,  54,  103,  in, 

113. 

Northampton,  95,  96,  109,  in. 
Nott,  Eliphalet,  154. 

Obookiah,  Henry,  84,  85. 

Olds,  Gamaliel  S.,  inaugural  address 
as  professor,  57;  rebellion  of  1808 
and,  58;  pastorate  at  Greenfield, 
59;  his  professorships  in  various 
colleges,  59,  123. 

Orton,  Azariah  G.,  155. 

Otis,  James,  44. 

Packard,  Theophilus,  94,  97,  98, 102, 

105,  114,  123. 
Parker,  Theodore,  223. 
Partridge,  Oliver,  17. 
Payson,  Seth,  103,  108. 
Peck,  James  I.,  268. 
Penalties,  46,  99,  138,  183,  327. 
Pensions,  256. 

Periodicals,  student,  307-09. 
Perry,  Arthur  L.,  176,  233;  methods 

of  teaching,  272, 273 ;  publications, 

273,  274. 


339 


INDEX 


Perry,  Carroll,  306. 
Peters,  Absalom,  98,  154. 
Phillips,  John  L.  T.,  175. 
Political  excitements,  67-71. 
Pomeroy,  Thaddeus,  116,  124. 
Pomeroy,  Seth,  on  the  battle  of  Lake 

George,  13. 
Porter,  Jeremiah,  191. 
Porter,  Moses,  letter  of,  II. 
Porter,  Noah,  243. 
Porter,  William  A.,  132,  133. 
Pratt,  "Bill,"  306,  333. 
Pratt,  Lewellyn,  234,  266. 
President's  house,  50,  292. 
Prime,  Samuel  I.,  89,  134,  143,  240. 
Prince,  Lucy,  the  trustees  and,  138. 
Professors'  houses,  293,  294. 
Professorships,  54,  56,  57,  99,  133, 

134- 

Programme  at  the  first  Commence- 
ment, 48-49. 

Prospectus  of  the  college,  1793,  326. 

Publications,  student,  307-09. 

Bueen's  College,  42-44. 
uincy,  Josiah,  speech  against  re- 
moval, no,  in. 

Rankin,  William,  301,  302. 

Raymond,  George  L.,  234,  253,  317. 

Reader  Philologian  Society,  resigns, 
177. 

Rebellions,  57,  58,  182-83. 

Religious  societies,  62-65. 

Removal  of  college,  committee  of 
trustees  on,  95;  interests  neigh- 
boring towns,  95,  96;  resolutions 
for,  94;  report  of  committee,  95, 
96;  authorized  by  trustees,  103; 
committee  on  location,  103;  inter- 
town  contests,  104,  108,  109;  ad- 
dress of  trustees,  108;  legislative 
struggle,  110-12;  defeated,  in; 
trustees  assailed,  114. 

Remsen,  Ira,  234. 

Revivals,  62,  129-30. 

Rice,  Richard  A.,  245. 

Robbins,  Ammi  R.,  45. 

Robbins,  Thomas,  60;  Diary,  60,  61, 
66;  address  at  the  semi-centennial, 

193- 
Roe,    Edward    P.,    interview    with 

President  Hopkins,   192;  literary 

career,  193. 
Ruggles,  Timothy,  14. 
Rumsey,  William,  263. 


Russell,  John  E.,  258. 
Russell,  William  E.,  250,  252. 

Sabin,  Henry  L.,  262,  313. 

Safford,  Truman  H.,  234;  mathe- 
matical genius,  268;  publications, 
270;  in  the  classroom,  270;  dedi- 
cation of  a  tablet  to,  270. 

Scudder,  David  C.,  316. 

Scudder,  Horace  E.,  250,  262. 

Seal,  college,  53,  54. 

Sedgwick,  Charles  F.,  280. 

Sedgwick,  Theodore,  54. 

Semi-centennial  of  the  college,  183- 

85. 
Sergeant,     Mrs.     Abigail,     7;     see 

Dwight,  Mrs.  Abigail. 
Shepard,  Samuel,  158,  313. 
Shirley,  Governor,  campaign  plans 

of,  8;  William  Johnson  and,  8. 
Simmons,  Joseph  E.,  263. 
Simonds,  Benjamin,  37. 
"Sketch "  of  the  college  and  founder, 

2,  3- 

Skinner,  Thompson  J.,  22,  37,  67-68. 
Smith,  Henry  B.,  254. 
Smith,  Lowell,  301. 
Smith,  Lyndon  A.,  141,  148. 
Smith,  Nathaniel,  103. 
Smith,  William,  38. 
Snow,  Francis  H.,  201,  202,  251. 
Society  of  Alumni,  116,  117.  , 
Society  of  Inquiry,  65. 
Spanish  taught  in  1827,  134. 
Stages,  New  York  and  Vermont,  18, 

19. 
Stetson,   Francis  L.,   244;  rebuilds 

Griffin  Hall,  132. 
Stiles,  Ezra,  39,  40. 
Stoddard,  Charles  A.,  251. 
Stoddard,  Colonel,  5,  6. 
Strong,  Alexander  H.,  troubles  with 

the  faculty,  136-37- 
Stuart,  Moses,  152. 
Student  enrolment,  72,  90,  99,  127, 

215,  240,  256,  260;  geographical 

distribution,  278,  279. 
Student  life,  61,  62,  141. 
Sunday  blue  laws  revived,  71. 
Swift,  Job,  45,  55. 
Swift,  Seth,  32,  39. 

Talcott,  Samuel  A.,  76-77. 
Tatlock,  John,  174,  178. 
Taxation  of  the  college,   160,  248, 
249. 


340 


INDEX 


Taylor,  James  M.f  252. 

Taylor,  John,  52,  315. 

Teaching  in  Williams,  1852-72,  176. 

Temperance  societies,  141-42. 

Tenney,  Sanborn,  176,  237. 

Thacher,  John  B.,  200. 

Theological  Society,  62;  questions 
discussed  in,  62-63;  discipline  of 
members,  64. 

Thompson,  Frederic  F.,  "story"  of, 
263;  a  defamer  of  President  Lin- 
coln and,  264. 

Thompson  Memorial  Chapel,  257. 

Todd,  John,  258. 

Towns  competing  for  the  college,  95, 
96,  106,  107. 

Townshend,  Martin  I.,  282,  289. 

Trenchard,  John,  13. 

Troy  and  Boston  R.R.  opened,  19. 

Trustees  of  the  college,  original 
board,  45. 

Trustees  of  Free  School,  32;  first 
meeting,  33;  lottery  and,  34;  elect 
Ebenezer  Fitch  Preceptor,  39; 
secure  a  college  charter,  42,  45. 

Tucker,  William  J.,  187. 

Van  Hise,  Charles  R.,  259. 
Van  Rensselaer,  Stephen,  43. 
Van  Schaak,  Henry,  45. 
Vaudreuil,  Rigaud,  4. 
Vincent  on  the  Catechism,  225. 

Washburn,   Emory,   116,   117,   141, 

185. 
Wayland,    Francis,    154,    155,    222, 

246. 
Webster,    Daniel,    the    Dartmouth 

College  case  and,  112. 
Webster,  Noah,  104. 
Wells,    David   A.,   economist,    196, 

197;  history  of  college,  197,  277; 

appraisal  of  college  course,  198. 
West,  Stephen,  3;  the  founder  and, 

3,  6,  9. 
West  College,  37;  reconstructions  of, 

38. 
West   Township,    first   survey,    17; 

"accommodable  for  settlements," 

17;   renamed,    18;    isolation,    18; 

controverted  jurisdiction,  19,  20; 

disorders  in,  20;  will  of  the  founder 

and,  16,  28-30. 
Wheeler,  Samuel  G.,  290. 
White,  Andrew  D.,  176,  216. 
White,  Joseph,  172,  186,  288. 


Whitney,  William  D.,  200,  202,  203. 

Williams,  Elijah,  45. 

Williams,  Mrs.  Elizabeth  (Jackson),!. 

Williams,  Ephraim,  the  founder, 
early  life,  1-2;  arrival  at  Stock- 
bridge,  3;  member  of  the  General 
Court,  4;  in  command  of  border 
forts,  4;  the  seven  years  of  peace, 
6-7;  Colonel  of  Hampshire  regi- 
ment, 9;  interest  in  projected  cam- 
paign, 9;  at  Albany,  10;  letters,  10; 
at  Great  Carrying  Place,  1 1 ;  let- 
ters, n,  12;  killed  in  a  skirmish, 
13;  contents  of  army  chest,  14, 
323;  his  will,  16;  purchases  the 
Stockbridge  homestead,  22;  letter 
to  Rev.  Mr.  Ashley,  27;  his  library, 
324;  amount  of  estate,  34;  cen- 
tenary of  his  death,  185,  186;  bi- 
centenary of  his  birth,  261. 

Williams,  Ephraim,  grandnephew  of 
the  founder,  252. 

Williams,  Ephraim,  Sr.,  marriage,  i; 
settles  at  Stockbridge,  4;  sale  of 
his  estate,  22;  ill-health,  23,  325; 
anxieties  of  his  family  about,  23; 
letters  of,  26;  his  death,  25;  a 
funeral  eulogy,  25. 

Williams,  Israel,  executor  of  found- 
er's estate,  21 ;  a  tory,  mobbed  and 
imprisoned,  21,  22. 

Williams,  Thomas,  I,  2;  on  the  death 
of  the  founder,  13;  inventories 
contents  of  founder's  army  chest, 


14,323,324: 
rilha 


Williams,  William,  33,  39. 

Williams  Christian  Association,  65, 
320. 

Williams  College,  charter,  42-44; 
first  board  of  trustees,  45;  non- 
sectarian,  44,  45,  318;  prospectus, 
46,  326;  terms  of  admission,  46; 
laws,  46,  327-28;  first  commence- 
ment, 48-50;  a  poor  man's  college, 
279-85;  a  rich  man's  college,  285; 
mission  of,  320,  321. 

Williams  Quarterly,  277,  307. 

Williams  songs,  168. 

Williams  verse,  309. 

Williamstown,  controversy  over  as 
site  for  a  college,  95-96,  109,  112, 

113- 

Wilson,  President,  259. 
Wood,  Ernest  H.,  259. 
Woodbridge,  Joseph,  94. 
Woodbridge,  Luther  D.,  268. 


341 


INDEX 


Woodbridge,  Timothy,  of  Hatfield, 
letter  to  the  founder,  5-6. 

Woodbridge,  Timothy,  blind  preach- 
er, 66,  67,  83,  152,  156;  removal  of 
the  college  and,  94. 

Woods,  Leonard,  97,  152. 

Worthington,  John,  21,  22. 


Wraxall,  Peter,  12. 
Wright,  Arthur  W.,  234. 

Yancey,  William  L.f  college  career, 
145;  apostle  of  disunion,  146. 

Zelie,  John  S.,  259,  306. 


CAMBRIDGE  .  MASSACHUSETTS 
U   .   S    .   A 


UNIVERSITY  OF  CALIFORNIA  LIBRARY 
BERKELEY 

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